Plot

In 1963, Oregon, recidivist criminal Randle McMurphy is moved to a mental institution after serving a short sentence on a prison farm after raping a teenager. Though not actually mentally ill, McMurphy hopes to avoid hard labour and serve the rest of his sentence in a relaxed environment. Upon arriving at the hospital, he finds the ward run by the steely, strict Nurse Ratched, who subtly suppresses the actions of her patients through a passive-aggressive routine, intimidating the patients.

The other patients include anxious, stuttering Billy Bibbit; Charlie Cheswick, who is prone to childish tantrums; delusional Martini; the well-educated, paranoid Dale Harding; belligerent Max Taber; epileptic Jim Sefelt; and “Chief” Bromden, a tall Native American believed to be deaf and mute. Ratched soon sees McMurphy’s lively, rebellious presence to be a threat to her authority, confiscating the patients’ cigarettes and rationing them. During his time in the ward, McMurphy gets into a battle of wits with Ratched. He steals a hospital bus, escaping with several patients to go on a fishing trip, encouraging his friends to become more self-confident.

McMurphy learns his sentence may become indefinite, and he makes plans to escape, exhorting Chief to throw a hydrotherapy cart through a window. He, Chief, and Cheswick get into a fight with the orderlies after the latter becomes agitated over his stolen cigarettes. Ratched sends them to the “shock shop”, and McMurphy discovers Chief can actually speak, feigning illness to avoid engaging with anyone. After being subjected to electroconvulsive therapy, McMurphy returns to the ward pretending to have brain damage, but reveals the treatment has charged him up even more. McMurphy and Chief make plans to escape, but decide to throw a secret Christmas party for their friends after Ratched leaves for the night.

McMurphy sneaks two women, Candy and Rose, into the ward and bribes the night guard. After a night of partying, McMurphy and Chief prepare to escape, inviting Billy to come with them. He refuses, not ready to leave the hospital. McMurphy instead convinces him to have sex with Candy. Ratched arrives in the morning to find the ward in disarray and most of the patients unconscious. She discovers Billy and Candy together, the former now free of his stutter, until Ratched threatens to inform his mother about his escapade. Billy is overwhelmed with fear and locks himself in the doctor’s office and commits suicide. The enraged McMurphy strangles Ratched, before being knocked out by an orderly.

Ratched comes back with a neck brace and a scratchy voice. Rumours spread that McMurphy escaped rather than be taken “upstairs”. Later that night, Chief sees McMurphy being returned to his bed. He discovers McMurphy has lobotomy scars on his forehead, and smothers his friend with a pillow. Chief finally throws the hydrotherapy cart through the window and escapes into the night, cheered on by the men.

Production

Filming began in January 1975 and concluded approximately three months later,[4] and was shot on location in Salem, Oregon and the surrounding area, as well as on the Oregon coast.[5][6] It was also shot at Oregon State Hospital in Salem, Oregon, which was also the setting of the novel.[7]

Haskell Wexler was fired as cinematographer and replaced by Bill Butler. Wexler believed his dismissal was due to his concurrent work on the documentary Underground, in which the radical terrorist group The Weather Underground were being interviewed while hiding from the law. However, Miloš Forman said he had terminated Wexler over mere artistic differences. Both Wexler and Butler received Academy Awardnominations for Best Cinematography for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, though Wexler said there was “only about a minute or two minutes in that film I didn’t shoot.”[8]

According to Butler, Jack Nicholson refused to speak to Forman: “…[Jack] never talked to Milos at all, he only talked to me.”[1]

Reception

The film was met with overwhelming critical acclaim; Roger Ebert said “Miloš Forman’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a film so good in so many of its parts that there’s a temptation to forgive it when it goes wrong. But it does go wrong, insisting on making larger points than its story really should carry, so that at the end, the human qualities of the characters get lost in the significance of it all. And yet there are those moments of brilliance.”[9] Ebert would later put the film on his “Great Movies” list.[10] A.D. Murphy of Variety wrote a mixed review as well,[11] as did Vincent Canby: writing in The New York Times, Canby called the film “a comedy that can’t quite support its tragic conclusion, which is too schematic to be honestly moving, but it is acted with such a sense of life that one responds to its demonstration of humanity if not to its programmed metaphors.”[12]

The film opens with original music by composer Jack Nitzsche, featuring an eerie bowed saw (performed by Robert Armstrong) and wine glasses. Commenting on the score, reviewer Steven McDonald has said, “The edgy nature of the film extends into the score, giving it a profoundly disturbing feel at times — even when it appears to be relatively normal. The music has a tendency to always be a little off-kilter, and from time to time it tilts completely over into a strange little world of its own …”[13]

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is considered to be one of the greatest American films. Ken Kesey participated in the early stages of script development, but withdrew after creative differences with the producers over casting and narrative point of view; ultimately he filed suit against the production and won a settlement.[15] Kesey himself claimed never to have seen the movie, but said he disliked what he knew of it,[16] a fact confirmed by Chuck Palahniuk who wrote, “The first time I heard this story, it was through the movie starring Jack Nicholson. A movie that Kesey once told me he disliked.”[17]

Kenneth Elton “Ken” Kesey (/ˈkiːziː/; September 17, 1935 – November 10, 2001) was an American novelist, essayist, and countercultural figure. He considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s.

In 1965, following an arrest for marijuana possession and subsequent faked suicide, Kesey was imprisoned for five months. Shortly thereafter, he returned home to the Willamette Valley and settled in Pleasant Hill, Oregon, where he maintained a secluded, family-oriented lifestyle for the rest of his life. In addition to teaching at the University of Oregon—culminating in Caverns (1989), a collaborative novel written by Kesey and his graduate workshop students under the pseudonym of “O.U. Levon”—he continued to regularly contribute fiction and reportage to such publications as Esquire, Rolling Stone, Oui, Running, and The Whole Earth Catalog; various iterations of these pieces were collected in Kesey’s Garage Sale (1973) and Demon Box (1986).

Kesey had a football scholarship for his freshman year, but switched to University of Oregon wrestling team as a better fit to his build. After posting a .885 winning percentage in the 1956–57 season, he received the Fred Low Scholarship for outstanding Northwest wrestler. In 1957, Kesey was second in his weight class at the Pacific Coast intercollegiate competition.[1][10][11] He remains “ranked in the top 10 of Oregon Wrestling’s all time winning percentage.”[12][13]

A member of Beta Theta Pi throughout his studies, Kesey graduated from the University of Oregon with a Bachelor of Arts degree in speech and communication in 1957. Increasingly disengaged by the playwriting and screenwriting courses that comprised much of his major, he began to take literature classes in the second half of his collegiate career with James B. Hall, a cosmopolitan alumnus of the University of Iowa‘s renowned writing program who had previously taught at Cornell University and later served as provost of the University of California, Santa Cruz.[14] Hall took on Kesey as his protege and cultivated his interest in literary fiction, introducing Kesey (whose interests were hitherto confined to Ray Bradbury‘s science fiction) to the works of Ernest Hemingway and other paragons of modernist fiction.[15] After the last of several brief summer sojourns as a struggling actor in Los Angeles, he published his first short story (“First Sunday of September”) in the Northwest Review and successfully applied to the highly selective Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship for the 1958–59 academic year.

Unbeknownst to Kesey, who applied at Hall’s request, the maverick literary critic Leslie Fiedler successfully importuned the regional fellowship committee to select the “rough-hewn” Kesey alongside more traditional fellows from Reed College and other elite institutions.[16] Because he lacked the prerequisites to work toward a traditional master’s degree in English as a communications major, Kesey elected to enroll in the non-degree program at Stanford University‘s Creative Writing Center that fall; while studying and working in the Stanford milieu over the next five years, most of them spent as a resident of Perry Lane (a historically bohemian enclave adjacent to the university golf course), he developed intimate lifelong friendships with fellow writers Ken Babbs, Larry McMurtry, Wendell Berry, Ed McClanahan, Gurney Norman, and Robert Stone.[2]

During his initial fellowship year, Kesey frequently clashed with Center director Wallace Stegner, who regarded the young writer as “a sort of highly talented illiterate”; Stegner’s deputy Richard Scowcroft later recalled that “neither Wally nor I thought he had a particularly important talent.”[17] Stegner rejected Kesey’s application for a departmental Stegner Fellowship before finally permitting his attendance as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow; according to Stone, Stegner “saw Kesey… as a threat to civilization and intellectualism and sobriety” and continued to reject Kesey’s Stegner Fellowship applications for the 1959–60 and 1960–61 terms.[18]

Nevertheless, Kesey received the prestigious $2,000 Harper-Saxton Prize for his first novel in progress (the oft-rejected Zoo) and audited the graduate writing seminar—a courtesy nominally accorded to former Stegner Fellows, although Kesey only secured his place by falsely claiming to Scowcroft that his colleague (on sabbatical through 1960) “had said that he could attend classes for free”—through the 1960-61 term.[17]The course was initially taught that year by Viking Press editorial consultant and Lost Generation eminence grise Malcolm Cowley, who was “always glad to see” Kesey and fellow auditor Tillie Olsen. Cowley was succeeded the following quarter by the Irish short story specialist Frank O’Connor; frequent spats between O’Connor and Kesey ultimately precipitated his departure from the class.[19] While under the tutelage of Cowley, he began to draft and workshop the manuscript that would evolve into One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

Reflecting upon this period in a 1999 interview with Robert K. Elder, Kesey recalled, “I was too young to be a beatnik, and too old to be a hippie.”[20]

Experimentation with psychoactive drugs

At the instigation of Perry Lane neighbor and Stanford psychology graduate student Vik Lovell, an acquaintance of Richard Alpert and Allen Ginsberg, Kesey volunteered to take part in what turned out to be a CIA-financed study under the aegis of Project MKULTRA, a highly secret military program, at the Menlo Park Veterans’ Hospital[21] where he worked as a night aide.[22] The project studied the effects of psychoactive drugs, particularly LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, cocaine, aMT, and DMT on people.[2] Kesey wrote many detailed accounts of his experiences with these drugs, both during the study and in the years of private experimentation that followed.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

While still enrolled at the University of Oregon in 1957, Kesey wrote End of Autumn; according to Rick Dogson, the novel “focused on the exploitation of college athletes by telling the tale of a football lineman who was having second thoughts about the game.”[24] Although Kesey came to regard the unpublished work as juvenilia, an excerpt served as his Stanford Creative Writing Center application sample.[24]

During his Woodrow Wilson Fellowship year, Kesey wrote Zoo, a novel about the beatniks living in the North Beach community of San Francisco, but it was never published.

Kesey originally was involved in creating the film, but left two weeks into production. He claimed never to have seen the movie because of a dispute over the $20,000 he was initially paid for the film rights. Kesey loathed the fact that, unlike the book, the film was not narrated by the Chief Bromden character, and he disagreed with Jack Nicholson’s being cast as Randle McMurphy (he wanted Gene Hackman). Despite this, Faye Kesey has stated that her husband was generally supportive of the film and pleased that it was made.[25]

Merry Pranksters

When the publication of his second novel, Sometimes a Great Notion in 1964, required his presence in New York, Kesey, Neal Cassady, and others in a group of friends they called the Merry Pranksters took a cross-country trip in a school bus nicknamed Further.[26] This trip, described in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (and later in Kesey’s unproduced screenplay, The Further Inquiry) was the group’s attempt to create art out of everyday life, and to experience roadway America while high on LSD. In an interview after arriving in New York, Kesey is quoted as saying, “The sense of communication in this country has damn near atrophied. But we found as we went along it got easier to make contact with people. If people could just understand it is possible to be different without being a threat.”[1] A huge amount of footage was filmed on 16mm cameras during the trip which remained largely unseen until the release of Alex Gibney‘s Magic Trip in 2011.

Kesey was arrested for possession of marijuana in 1965. In an attempt to mislead police, he faked suicide by having friends leave his truck on a cliffside road near Eureka, along with an elaborate suicide note, written by the Pranksters. Kesey fled to Mexico in the back of a friend’s car. When he returned to the United States eight months later, Kesey was arrested and sent to the San Mateo County jail in Redwood City, California, for five months where he was introduced to a highly recommended San Francisco lawyer, Richard Potack, who specialized in marijuana cultivation. On his release, he moved back to the family farm in Pleasant Hill, Oregon, in the Willamette Valley, where he spent the rest of his life.[27] He wrote many articles, books (mostly collections of his articles), and short stories during that time.

Death of son

In 1984, Kesey’s 20-year-old son Jed, a wrestler for the University of Oregon, suffered severe head injuries in a vehicle accident on the way to a tournament;[11] after he was declared brain-dead two days later his parents gave permission for his organs to be donated.[28]

Jed’s death deeply affected Kesey, who later called Jed a victim of policies that had starved the team of funding. He wrote to Mark Hatfield, “And I began to get mad, Senator. I had finally found where the blame must be laid: that the money we are spending for national defense is not defending us from the villains real and near, the awful villains of ignorance, and cancer, and heart disease and highway death. How many school buses could be outfitted with seatbelts with the money spent for one of those 16-inch shells?” [29]

At a Grateful Dead concert soon after the death of promoter Bill Graham, Kesey delivered a eulogy, mentioning that Graham had donated $1,000 toward a memorial to Jed atop Mount Pisgah, near the Kesey home in Pleasant Hill.[30] Ken Kesey donated $33,395 towards the purchase of a proper bus for the school’s wrestling team to replace the chicken van that fell off a cliff.[31]

Final years

Kesey was diagnosed with diabetes in 1992. In 1994, he toured with members of the Merry Pranksters performing a musical play he wrote about the millennium called Twister: A Ritual Reality. Many old and new friends and family showed up to support the Pranksters on this tour that took them from Seattle’s Bumbershoot, all along the West Coast including a sold out two-night run at The Fillmore in San Francisco to Boulder, Colorado, where they coaxed (or pranked) the Beat Generation poet Allen Ginsberg into performing with them.[citation needed]

Kesey mainly kept to his home life in Pleasant Hill, preferring to make artistic contributions on the Internet or holding ritualistic revivals in the spirit of the Acid Test. In the official Grateful Dead DVD release The Closing of Winterland (2003) documenting the monumental New Year’s 1978/1979 concert at the Winterland Arena in San Francisco, Kesey is featured in a between-set interview.[citation needed]

On August 14, 1997, Kesey and his Pranksters attended a Phish concert in Darien Lake, New York. Kesey and the Pranksters appeared onstage with the band and performed a dance-trance-jam session involving several characters from The Wizard of Oz and Frankenstein.[citation needed]

Death

In 1998, health problems began to weaken him, starting with a stroke that year.[2] On October 25, 2001 Kesey had surgery on his liver to remove a tumor.[2] He did not recover from that operation and died of complications on November 10, 2001, age 66.[2]

Elaine B Safer, The contemporary American Comic Epic: The Novels of Barth, Pynchon, Gaddis, and Kesey. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1988.

Peter Swirski, “You’re Not in Canada until You Can Hear the Loons Crying; or, Voting, People’s Power and Ken Kesey’s One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” in Swirski, American Utopia and Social Engineering in Literature, Social Thought, and Political History. New York: Routledge, 2011.

A Police officer stands guard at a baracade following the sniper shooting in Dallas on July 7, 2016.

DALLAS, TX – JULY 8: Flags fly at half mast at Dallas City Hall following the fatal shootings of five police officers on July 8, 2016 in Dallas, Texas. Micah Xavier Johnson has been identified as the suspected sniper in the fatal shooting of five police officers, and injuring seven more at a Black Lives Matter demonstration held on July 7, 2016 in Dallas, Texas. Stewart F. House/Getty Images/AFP

The investigation into Johnson’s attack is still ongoing, and much remains is still unknown. But a picture is beginning to emerge of what went on inside the standoff — a source tells NBC Investigates that the 25-year-old was wounded by gunfire before being killed by a robot outfitted with a bomb — and how he prepared for the deadly assault.

Police Search Micah Xavier Johnson’s Home

“This was a mobile shooter that had written manifestos on how to shoot and move, shoot and move, and he did that. He did his damage,” Rawlings said.

Officials told NBC News the investigation so far has yielded no additional suspects that may have played a role in the shooting. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said Friday that there is no information about additional co-conspirators, but if any are found, they will be brought to justice.

Sources tell NBC News they have found no ties between Johnson and any extremist groups so far.

“We believe now, that the city is safe,” Rawlings said. “The suspect is dead, and we can move on to healing.”

We believe now, that the city is safe. The suspect is dead and we can move on to healing.

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings

INSIDE THE STANDOFF
Johnson was laughing and singing and not at all anxious during the standoff at the El Centro College building, a law enforcement source with knowledge of the incident told NBC 5 Investigates senior reporter Scott Friedman.

Johnson told police he had specifically been training for this event and working out in preparation for Thursday night. NBC 5 Investigates has also learned Johnson was wearing a military-style bulletproof vest.

Johnson at first said that he only wanted to talk to black police officers – he said he didn’t want to have anything to do with white people. He shared police conspiracies and his dislike for police officers, a law enforcement source said.

Officers cornered Johnson and negotiated with him for hours before talks broke down, police said.

Army Veteran Identified As a Gunman in Dallas Protest Shootings

A law enforcement source describes Micah Xavier Johnson’s behavior Thursday as cold and unafraid, saying he was laughing and singing during the hours-long standoff with police. (Published Friday, July 8, 2016)

From left to right: Michael Krol, Patrick Zamarripa and Brent Thompson.

The identities of three of the five officers who died in the mass shooting that targeted police in Dallas emerged on Friday morning, as family, friends and the public paid tribute.

They include a newlywed transit officer, a Dallas police department officer who had expressed love for his job and his country, and a Detroit-area native whose family said it was his life’s dream to become an officer. Seven other officers were injured as sniper fire broke out while police were patrolling a peaceful protest in Dallas on Thursday evening organized to demonstrate against the police shooting deaths of Philando Castile in Minnesota and Alton Sterling in Louisiana earlier this week.
Dallas police shootings: what we know so far

Brent Thompson

Brent Thompson, 43, was killed in the gunfire and was the first officer of the Dallas area rapid transit (Dart) division to be killed in the line of duty since the department was established in 1989. The force provides law enforcement on the city’s bus, light rail, commuter rail and high-occupancy road lanes in a transit system serving Dallas and 12 suburbs in the greater metropolis.

Thompson joined the division in 2009. The Dart chief, James Spiller, said: “He was an outstanding patrol officer as well as a rail officer.”

Thompson married a fellow Dart officer just last month, said Spiller on NBC Today.

“He was recently married in the last two weeks, so this is very heartbreaking. We will definitely miss him, and we are also making sure his family is taken care of,” he said.

A statement from Dart said: “Our hearts are broken.”

A picture was posted on Twitter of Thompson with his grandson.

Before joining the mass transit police, Thompson worked with US police officers in Iraq and Afghanistan for the military contractor Dyncorp, according to his LinkedIn page.

Patrick Zamarripa
Tributes were posted on social media for the Dallas police department officer Patrick Zamarripa, 32, on Friday morning, with a family member sharing a picture of the officer with his father.

One post from his stepbrother, Dylan Martinez, read: “No father should have to bury his son. You are a hero, Patrick. Love you man.…”

Patrick Zamarripa

Patrick Zamarripa. Photograph: @KDylanMartinez/Twitter
He was described as a family man and a military veteran who had survived three tours in Iraq, according to the Washington Post.

On Zamarripa’s Twitter page, he had written: “Addicted to the thrill of this job. I own the night. I love my Country, Texas, Family, God, Friends, and Sports! Don’t Tread on Me! ’Merica.”

On the Fourth of July, Zamarripa posted a patriotic tweet, saying: “Happy Birthday to the greatest country on the face of this planet. My beloved America!”

He had also tweeted about getting ready to police a recent rally for Donald Trump in Dallas and posted in support of the victims of the mass shooting at the gay nightclub Pulse, in Orlando.

He has been hailed as a hero on social media.

Michael Krol

Michael Krol, 40, became an officer in the Dallas police department in 2007 after previously working in his local county jail system in Michigan.

Krol worked for the Wayne County sheriff’s office in the county jail system from 2003-2007, according to a statement.

His uncle, Jim Ehlke, told WDVI his nephew had a passion for helping people and that being an officer was his life dream.

“He got into law enforcement and worked really hard to be a police officer. He spent some time at the correctional facility. It wasn’t quite what he was looking for, so he worked pretty hard to find a job and got one in Dallas,” Ehlke said. “He was all in, he was all in.”
“He knew the danger of the job but he never shied away from his duty as a police officer,” Krol’s mother, Susan Ehlke, told WXYZ. “He was a great, caring person and wanted to help people. A wonderful son, brother, uncle, nephew and friend.”

He lived in the Dallas-Fort Worth area with his girlfriend, ABC also reported.

The Wayne County sheriff’s office issued a statement on Friday morning.

“We are saddened by the loss of the dedicated officers in Dallas – one of whom was a former member of this agency – and also the wounding of the other officers,” said sheriff Benny Napoleon . “Those officers made the ultimate sacrifice and died honoring their oaths to protect and serve. Our thoughts and prayers go out to their families and also the Dallas police department,” he added.

The other victims are believed to be Dallas police officers, but they have not yet been identified.

The investigation into Johnson’s attack is still ongoing, and much remains is still unknown. But a picture is beginning to emerge of what went on inside the standoff — a source tells NBC Investigates that the 25-year-old was wounded by gunfire before being killed by a robot outfitted with a bomb — and how he prepared for the deadly assault.

We believe now, that the city is safe. The suspect is dead and we can move on to healing.

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings

“This was a mobile shooter that had written manifestos on how to shoot and move, shoot and move, and he did that. He did his damage,” Rawlings said.

Officials told NBC News the investigation so far has yielded no additional suspects that may have played a role in the shooting. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said Friday that there is no information about additional co-conspirators, but if any are found, they will be brought to justice.

Sources tell NBC News they have found no ties between Johnson and any extremist groups so far.

“We believe now, that the city is safe,” Rawlings said. “The suspect is dead, and we can move on to healing.”

Dallas Shooter Laughed, Sang During Standoff: Source

A North Texas Army veteran has been identified as a gunman responsible for the sniper attacks that killed five police officers and injured seven others in Dallas, according to authorities. According to a law enforcement source, Micah Xavier Johnson laughed and sang during an hours-long standoff with police. (Published 3 hours ago)

INSIDE THE STANDOFF
Johnson was laughing and singing and not at all anxious during the standoff at the El Centro College building, a law enforcement source with knowledge of the incident told NBC 5 Investigates senior reporter Scott Friedman.

Johnson told police he had specifically been training for this event and working out in preparation for Thursday night. NBC 5 Investigates has also learned Johnson was wearing a military-style bulletproof vest.

Johnson at first said that he only wanted to talk to black police officers – he said he didn’t want to have anything to do with white people. He shared police conspiracies and his dislike for police officers, a law enforcement source said.

Officers cornered Johnson and negotiated with him for hours before talks broke down, police said.

Dallas Police Chief, Mayor 7:30 A.M. Update (Raw Video)

Dallas Police Chief David Brown and Mayor Mike Rawlings provided a 7:30 a.m. update on the shootings in downtown Dallas. “It has been a long, long morning,” said Mike Rawlings, mayor of Dallas. Here is the full 17-minutes of remarks with what was known at the time, including the use of a robot bomb used to kill the suspect. (Published Friday, July 8, 2016)

A law enforcement source told Friedman on a scale of 1 to 10 this situation was a 30.

MILITARY HISTORY

AG Lynch: ‘The Answer Is Never Violence’

Attorney General Loretta Lynch denounced the sniper attack that killed five police officers in Dallas on Thursday, urging people to reflect on “the country that we want to build and the kind of society that we are choosing to pass on to our children.” (Published 3 hours ago)

The Army said Johnson served in the Army Reserve and did one tour of duty in Afghanistan, from November 2013 to July 2014.

Johnson was a private first class and his military occupational specialty was carpentry and masonry.

His service dates, as provided by the Army, were March 2009 to April 2015.

What we know

Three officers have been identified. One of the dead officers has been named as Brent Thompson, 43 – the first Dart (transit) officer to be killed in the line of duty. Another was identified by his family as officer Patrick Zamarripa. Michael Krol, a native of Detroit who joined the Dallas police department in 2007, was named on Friday.

Barack Obama condemned the killings as “a vicious, calculated and despicable attack on law enforcement”. Speaking in Warsaw, where he is attending a two-day Nato summit, Obama again called for gun control. “When people are armed with powerful weapons unfortunately it makes attacks like these more deadly and more tragic,” he said.

Three people have been detained by police: a woman who was stopped close to the garage, plus two people who were stopped in a dark Mercedes.

A fourth suspect was identified as Micah Johnson, 25, a Texas law enforcement official told the AP. Johnson died after an armed standoff with police on a second floor parking lot close to El Centro College. The mayor of Dallas, Mike Rawlings, said he did not know how the man died or what weapons had been found on him, but that police had used explosives to “blast him out”. Johnson said he wanted to “kill white people, especially white officers”, according to Dallas police chief David Brown. During hours of negotiations with police, Johnson said he was unaffiliated with any groups and “did this alone”. Brown said the suspect was upset about Black Lives Matter, the recent shootings and white people.

A police robot was used to kill Johnson. Dallas police used a bomb-disposal robot with an explosive device on its manipulator arm. Experts believe it was the first time a lethally armed robot has been used by police.

No bombs were found after two police searches. Major Max Geron of Dallaspolice tweeted: “Primary and secondary sweeps for explosives are complete and no explosives found.”

One civilian was also wounded: Shetamia Taylor, who was attending the protest with her sons, was shot in the leg but her injuries are not thought to be life-threatening.

Mark Hughes, who mistakenly became a suspect after being pictured holding a long rifle in a photo circulated by the police department, has been released after turning himself in. “I could easily have been shot,” he told CBS, adding that he was not satisfied with a police apology after getting death threats on social media.

What we don’t know

The motive for the killing. The shootings came at the end of a peaceful Black Lives Matter protest sparked by the killing of two black men by police officers in separate incidents earlier this week. Obama said: “We will learn more about their twisted motivations, but let’s be clear; there is no possible justification for these kinds of attacks or any violence against law enforcement.”

How many shooters were involved? At least one shooter opened fire from an elevated position. It is unclear whether more than one opened fire.

Whether the suspects worked together to launch the attack. Johnson told police that he “did this alone”. Brown later told a crowd at an interfaith vigil that the attack, “was a well planned, well thought out, evil tragedy by these suspects, and we won’t rest until we bring everyone involved to justice.”

Lynch to Dallas protesters: ‘Do not be discouraged’

By Nolan D. McCaskill

Attorney General Loretta Lynch on Friday encouraged protesters not to allow the “heinous violence” that occurred in Dallas to silence their “important” voices.
Five police officers died and seven more were wounded in an ambush during a peaceful rally in Dallas on Thursday to protest the deaths of black men in Louisiana and Minnesota who were shot dead by police this week. Two civilians were also injured Thursday.
Story Continued Below

Lynch stressed that she is “deeply grateful” to law enforcement’s commitment to difficult and dangerous work to keep America safe but vowed that the Justice Department would do all it can to help. And she urged peaceful protesters not to give up.

“I want you to know that your voice is important,” Lynch said Friday during a news conference at the Justice Department. “Do not be discouraged by those who would use your lawful actions as cover for their heinous violence. We will continue to safeguard your constitutional rights and to work with you in the difficult mission of building a better nation and a brighter future.”
Lynch announced that the Justice Department will offer assistance to local law enforcement in Dallas, a city she described as a community “severely shaken and deeply scarred by an unfathomable tragedy.” She said DOJ and the agencies within it, including the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office, will work alongside state and local officials there.
“We intend to provide any assistance we can to investigate this attack and also to help heal a community that has been severely shaken and deeply scarred by an unfathomable tragedy,” she said. “This is an unfolding situation. We will be providing additional information when it is available and appropriate. But more so, this has been a week of profound grief and heartbreaking loss.”
Thursday’s protest was held in the wake of the fatal shootings of Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old whose death outside a Baton Rouge convenience store was captured on video, and Philando Castile, a 32-year-old whose fiancée filmed the aftermath of his death via Facebook live in Falcon Heights.
The Justice Department has opened a civil rights investigation into the Louisiana encounter, and Lynch said DOJ will offer assistance to local officials leading the investigation in Minnesota.

Lynch mourned the “devastating loss” of the slain officers and empathized with the sentiments of much of the country, as Americans try to cope with the back-to-back police-involved killings this week that each gained national attention.
“Americans across our county are feeling a sense of helplessness, of uncertainty and of fear,” Lynch said. “And these feelings are understandable, and they are justified. But the answer must not be violence. The answer is never violence.”
The answer, Lynch maintained, is action — “calm, peaceful, collaborative and determined action,” she said. “We must continue working to build trust between communities and law enforcement. We must continue working to guarantee every person in this country equal justice under the law. And we must take a hard look at the ease with which wrongdoers can get their hands on deadly weapons and the frequency with which they use them.”
The DOJ chief called on Americans to consider what kind of country they want to pass on to future generations and to shun divisive impulses.
“We must reflect on the kind of country that we want to build and the kind of society that we are choosing to pass on to our children,” Lynch said. “And above all, we must reject the easy impulses of bitterness and rancor and embrace the difficult work — but the important work, the vital work — of finding a path forward together. And above everything, we must remind ourselves that we are all Americans, and that as Americans, we share not just a common land but a common life.”
And those lives lost this week, Lynch said, came from different neighborhoods and backgrounds but will be grieved by all.
“Today, they’re mourned by officers, by residents, by family and friends, by men and women and children who loved them, who needed them and who will miss them always,” she said. “They are mourned by all of us. To the families of all who lost their lives in this series of tragedies, we share your pain and your loss.”

One had to look no further than the fact that the ideological guru behind ‘Black Lives Matter’ – the individual whom its founders cite as their inspiration – Assata Shakur – is a convicted cop killer who is on the FBI’s ‘Most Wanted Terrorists’ list.

BLM protesters have also repeatedly invoked violent rhetoric. During a march in New York, demonstrators chanted, “What do we want? Dead cops. When do we want it? Now!”

BLM agitators have also used the refrain “pigs in a blanket, fry ’em like bacon!” on numerous occasions to promote violence against police officers.

The Black Lives Matter movement (BLM) casts itself as a spontaneous uprising born of inner city frustration, but is, in fact, the latest and most dangerous face of a web of well-funded communist/socialist organizations that have been agitating against America for decades. Its agitation has provoked police killings and other violence, lawlessness and unrest in minority communities throughout the U.S. If allowed to continue, that agitation could devolve into anarchy and civil war. The BLM crowd appears to be spoiling for just such an outcome.

Nevertheless, BLM appears to be exercising considerable leverage over the Democratic Party, in part by pressuring and intimidating Democratic candidates such as Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders (VT) into embracing their cause. The movement could also assist President Obama’s exploitation of racial divisions in society beyond his final term in office.

This report examines in detail, for the first time, how communist groups have manipulated the cause of Black Lives Matter, and how money from liberal foundations has made it all possible.

Leftist origins

Exploiting blacks to promote Marxist revolution is an old tactic. The late Larry Grathwohl, former FBI informant in the Weather Underground, understood from personal experience how white communists exploited blacks and other minority groups. He said that Weather Underground terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn regarded Barack Obama, whose political career they sponsored, as a tool – a puppet – to use against white America. Obama’s legacy at home will certainly include more racial division.

BLM launched in 2013 with a Twitter hashtag, #BlackLivesMatter, after neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman was acquitted in the Trayvon Martin killing. Radical Left activists Alicia Garza,Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi claim credit for the slogan and hashtag. Following the Michael Brown shooting in August 2014, Dream Defenders, an organization led by Working Families Party (ACORN) activist and Occupy Wall Street anarchist Nelini Stamp, popularized the phrase “Hands Up–Don’t Shoot!” which has since become BLM’s widely recognized slogan.

Garza, Cullors and Tometi all work for front groups of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), one of the four largest radical Left organizations in the country. The others are the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), and the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS). Nelini Stamp’s ACORN – now rebranded under a variety of different names – works with all four organizations, and Dream Defenders is backed by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the ACLU, the Southern Poverty Law Center and others.

FRSO is a hereditary descendant of the New Communist Movement, which was inspired by Mao and the many communist revolutions throughout the world in the 1960s and 1970s. FRSO split into two separate groups in 1999, FRSO/Fight Back and FRSO/OSCL (Freedom Road Socialist Organization/Organizaciόn Socialista del Camino para la Libertad). Black Lives Matter and its founders are allied with the latter group. Future references to FRSO in this article refer to FRSO/OSCL.

FRSO is comprised of dozens of groups. The radical Left model is based on alliances of many organizations that are working on separate issues but dedicated ultimately to the same thing: overthrowing our society in order to replace it with a hardcore socialist (read communist) one.

The goal is to present the appearance of a formidable mass of organizations. Some are large, but many are little more than a website or Facebook page. When necessary, they can all come together to promote the cause du jour. The deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and others were mere pretexts for socialist agitation. The real enemy is “the system.” This is why the BLM crowd denies the facts of those cases. As Stamp has said, “we are actually trying to change the capitalist system we have today because it’s not working for any of us.”

BLM is one of many projects undertaken by the FRSO. Except for the website, blacklivesmatter.com, there is no actual organization. The website implicitly acknowledges this, describing #BlackLivesMatter as “an online forum intended to build connections between Black people and our allies to fight anti-Black racism, to spark dialogue among Black people, and to facilitate the types of connections necessary to encourage social action and engagement.”

FRSO membership is disproportionately represented by blacks, gays and women, and self-consciously emphasizes those issues. Garza, who penned a “Herstory” of BLM, is a ” queer,” black veteran activist involved in numerous FRSO organizations. Her resumé includes:

Cullors describes herself as a “working class, queer, black woman.” She claims the country killed her father, a drug addict. At a 2015 Netroots Nation conference, Cullors led chants shouting, “If I die in police custody, burn everything down… rise the f— up! That is the only way mother—–s like you will listen!” Cullors founded and directs Dignity and Power Now (DPN), which claims to seek “dignity and power of incarcerated people, their families, and communities.”

Cullors was trained by Eric Mann, a former Weather Underground leader who exhorts followers to become “anti-racist, anti-imperialist” activists. Mann runs another FRSO front, the Labor/Community Strategy Center. Like most professional leftists, he makes good money – over $225,000 annually – living in “the system” he advocates destroying.

Tometi is the daughter of illegal aliens from Nigeria. While in college, she worked for the ACLU defending illegal aliens against “vigilantes” opposed to illegal immigration. She is currently the executive director of Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI).

The funding

FRSO/BLM organizations are generously supported by a universe of wealthy foundations. Some, like those employing BLM founders Garza and Tometi, receive money directly. Others, like Cullors’ DPN, are financed by organizations designed specifically to underwrite the activities of others. Amounts reflect donations received over approximately the past decade.

POWER (Garza) – 2013 revenues were $456,676, including $92,173 in government grants. POWER evolved from the now defunct communist group STORM (Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement). Obama’s former “Green Jobs Czar” the self-described communist, Van Jones, served on STORM’s board.

RTTC (Garza) – 2013 revenues were $248,190. RTTC is a nationwide network of activist organizations that resists the gentrification of inner cities because it displaces “low-income people, people of color, marginalized LGBTQ communities, and youths of color…”

Cullors’ DPN is underwritten by Community Partners, a Los Angeles based non-profit with a $24 million budget (including $4 million in government grants) that fiscally sponsors non-profits. It is not an FRSO organization.

Advancement Project (AP) – an FRSO group that funds a variety of radical causes. AP sees America as a racist, oppressive nation and, according to Discover the Networks, “works to organize ‘communities of color’ into politically cohesive units while disseminating its leftist worldviews and values as broadly as possible by way of a sophisticated communications department.” Its 2013 revenues were $11.3 million.

BLM’s mission includes a kitchen sink of favored radical Left causes, including support of poverty elimination programs, prison deinstitutionalization, illegal immigration and gay rights. Highlighting FRSO’s orientation toward gay blacks, it describes how “Black, queer and trans folks bear a unique burden from a hetero-patriarchal society that disposes of us like garbage and simultaneously fetishizes us and profits off of us, and that is state violence.”

Its wide network of affiliates and partner organizations like CPUSA and ACORN allows BLM to turn out large crowds. Many participate simply to protest, commit violence, loot or all three.

FRSO was prominent at the Ferguson protests and videoed the event. It has even created a Black Lives Matter button. Following are more FRSO organizations involved with BLM. (Funding estimates provided when known).

Grassroots Global Justice Alliance (GGJ) – “a national alliance of US-based grassroots organizing (GRO) groups organizing to build an agenda for power for working and poor people and communities of color.”

Hands Up United – Works for “liberation of oppressed Black, Brown, and poor people through education, art, civil disobedience, advocacy, and agriculture.”

Revolutionary Student Coordinating Committee (RSCC) a militant group founded in 2012 by CUNY students. It is networked at different U.S. colleges. This group organized the infamous pro-abortion <A href=”http://www.acahnman.blogspot.com/2013/07/texas-capital-abortion-supporters-chant.html “Hail Satan” chant at Texas capital. Its extremism is captured in the following video:

Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) is a “national network of groups and individuals organizing White people for racial justice.” SURJ quotes Garza saying that “We need you defecting from White supremacy and changing the narrative of White supremacy by breaking White silence.”

BLM groups have also joined with CPUSA, CCDS, DSA, SEIU, Color of Change and many others. Anarchist and top OWS organizer Lisa Fithian, who orchestrated the 1999 Seattle World Trade Organization riots, trained Ferguson protesters. Fithian says “Create crisis, because crisis is that edge where change is possible.”

Fithian echoes Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven – creators of the infamous Cloward/Piven Crisis Strategy – who spent decades attempting to provoke ghetto blacks to riot, because “Poor people can advance only when ‘the rest of society is afraid of them.’” Rasheen Aldridge, seen above meeting President Obama, was a leader of the Ferguson protests. He has participated in numerous CPUSA events in 2013, 2014 and 2015. Another prominent CPUSA member active in BLM protests is Michael McPhearson, who leads the Don’t Shoot Coalition.

Carl Davidson and Pat Fry, co-chairs of CCDS, exploited the revolutionary atmosphere of the Ferguson riots to create an eight-point plan for “Left Unity” demanding “a common aspiration for socialism.”

Interestingly, MORE doesn’t believe in socialism when it is footing the bill. MORE promised to pay Ferguson protesters $5,000/month to hang out and cause trouble. But just as ACORN stiffed its employees while preaching socialist generosity, MORE stiffed the protesters.

Islamist organizations have also jumped on the BLM bandwagon, reminding us of the unholy alliance that exists between them and the radical Left. In September 2015, the Muslim Brotherhood front-group Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) joined BLM activists in storming California Governor Jerry Brown’s office. CAIR also participated in the Ferguson protests. Meanwhile ISIS is recruiting American blacks for its cause.

Intellectual genealogy of Black Lives Matter

“We must be ready to employ trickery, deceit, law-breaking, withholding and concealing truth… We can and must write in a language which sows among the masses hate, revulsion, and scorn toward those who disagree with us.” – Vladimir Lenin

That quote from the Soviet Union’s first leader captures the entire essence of the Left’s strategy. No matter what the issue, no matter what the facts, the Left advances a relentless, hate-filled narrative that America is irredeemably evil and must be destroyed as soon as possible. The BLM movement is only the latest but perhaps most dangerous variant on this divisive theme.

Communists use language and psychology as weapons. Their constant vilification is a form of psychological terror. It puts America and Americans on trial. The verdict is always guilty. Facts don’t matter because the Left does not want to resolve the problems they complain about. They use those problems to agitate and provoke, hoping conflict becomes unavoidable – thereby creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Their hatred is tactical.

“Critical race theory contends that America is permanently racist to its core, and that consequently the nation’s legal structures are, by definition, racist and invalid … members of ‘oppressed’ racial groups are entitled – in fact obligated – to determine for themselves which laws and traditions have merit and are worth observing…”

Bell’s theory is in turn an innovation of Critical Theory – developed by philosophers of the communist Frankfurt School. The school was founded in Frankfurt, Germany in 1923. Its Jewish communist scholars fled Hitler’s Germany in the 1930s, relocating to Columbia Teachers College in New York. Critical Theory – which discredits all aspects of Western society – rapidly infected the minds of newly-minted college professors, who then spread its poison throughout the university system. We know it today as political correctness.

White privilege

The “racist” narrative was turbocharged with the concept of “White Privilege,” the notion that whites – the dominant group in capitalist America – are irretrievably racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, fill-in-the-blank-ophobic, imperialistic oppressors who exploit everyone. Whites are the only true evil in the world and should be exterminated.

The “White Skin Privilege” idea was created in 1967 by Noel Ignatiev, an acolyte of Bell and professor at Harvard’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute (Du Bois was a Communist black leader who helped found the NAACP). Ignatiev was a member of CPUSA’s most radical wing, the Maoist/Stalinist Provisional Organizing Committee to Reconstitute the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party (POC). POC was the intellectual forerunner to FRSO.

Writing under the alias Noel Ignatin, Ignatiev co-authored an SDS pamphlet with fellow radical Ted Allen, titled “White Blindspot.” In 1992 he co-founded “Race Traitor: Journal of the New Abolitionism.” Its first issue coined the slogan, “Treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity.” Its stated objective was to “abolish the white race.” More specifically, the New Abolitionist newsletter stated:

“The way to abolish the white race is to challenge, disrupt and eventually overturn the institutions and behavior patterns that reproduce the privileges of whiteness, including the schools, job and housing markets, and the criminal justice system. The abolitionists do not limit themselves to socially acceptable means of protest, but reject in advance no means of attaining their goal (emphasis added).”

But do not be confused; “White” does not mean white. “White” in radical construction means anyone of any race, creed, nationality, color, sex, or sexual preference who embraces capitalism, free markets, limited government and American traditional culture and values. By definition, these beliefs are irredeemably evil and anyone who aligns with them is “white” in spirit and thus equally guilty of “white crimes.” Ignatiev still teaches, now at the Massachusetts College of Art.

The Black Lives Matter movement carries this narrative to unprecedented heights, claiming that only whites can be racists. And while justifying violence to achieve “social justice,” the movement’s goal is to overthrow our society to replace it with a Marxist one. Many members of the black community would be shocked to learn that the intellectual godfathers of this movement are mostly white Communists, “queers” and leftist Democrats, intent on making blacks into cannon fodder for the revolution.

Garza, Cullors and Tometi met through “Black Organizing for Leadership & Dignity” (BOLD), a national organization that trains community organizers.[7] They began to question how they were going to respond to the devaluation of black lives after Zimmerman’s acquittal. Garza wrote a Facebook post titled “A Love Note to Black People” in which she wrote: “Our Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter”. Cullors replied: “#BlackLivesMatter”. Tometi then added her support, and Black Lives Matter was born as an online campaign.[7]

In August 2014, BLM members organized their first in-person national protest in the form of a “Black Lives Matter Freedom Ride” to Ferguson, Missouri after the shooting of Michael Brown.[7] More than five hundred members descended upon Ferguson to participate in non-violent demonstrations. Of the many groups that descended on Ferguson, Black Lives Matter emerged from Ferguson as one of the best organized and most visible groups, becoming nationally recognized as symbolic of the emerging movement.[7]Since August 2014, Black Lives Matter has organized more than one thousand protest demonstrations. On Black Friday in November, Black Lives Matter staged demonstrations at stores and malls across the United States.[7]

Tactics

Black Lives Matter originally used social media—including hashtag activism—to reach thousands of people rapidly.[7] Since then, Black Lives Matters has embraced a diversity of tactics.[13] BLM generally engages in direct action tactics that make people uncomfortable enough that they must address the issue.[14]

It is important to note that music is an important repertoire of contention for the black lives matter movement. Rappers such as Kendrick Lamar have used music to promote structural conduciveness necessary for a social movement to maintain momentum according to value added theory.[26] Songs such as “Alright” have been used as a rallying call.[27]Beyoncé‘s most recent production lemonade featured Mike Brown and Trayvon Martin’s mothers crying while holding the last images they have of their sons, in effect propelling the issue of police brutality to a national stage.[28] The video for her single “Formation” (2016) celebrates southern black culture and features a line of policemen holding up their hands while a hooded black boy dances in front of them. The video also features a shot of graffiti on a wall reading “stop shooting us”.[29]

Memes are also important in garnering support for and against the Black Lives Matter new social movement. Information communication technologies such as Facebook and Twitter spread memes and are important tools for garnering web support in hopes of producing a spillover effect into the offline world.[30] The use of ICTs facilitate the spread of the message “All Lives Matter” as a response to the Black Lives Matter hashtag as well as the “Blue Lives Matter” hashtag as a response to Beyonce’s halftime performance speaking out against police brutality.[31][32]

Founder Alicia Garza summed up the philosophy behind Black Lives Matter as follows: “When we say Black Lives Matter, we are talking about the ways in which Black people are deprived of our basic human rights and dignity. It is an acknowledgement Black poverty and genocide is state violence. It is an acknowledgment that 1 million Black people are locked in cages in this country–one half of all people in prisons or jails–is an act of state violence. It is an acknowledgment that Black women continue to bear the burden of a relentless assault on our children and our families and that assault is an act of state violence.”

Garza went on: “Black queer and trans folks bearing a unique burden in a hetero-patriarchal society that disposes of us like garbage and simultaneously fetishizes us and profits off of us is state violence; the fact that 500,000 Black people in the US are undocumented immigrants and relegated to the shadows is state violence; the fact that Black girls are used as negotiating chips during times of conflict and war is state violence; Black folks living with disabilities and different abilities bear the burden of state-sponsored Darwinian experiments that attempt to squeeze us into boxes of normality defined by White supremacy is state violence. And the fact is that the lives of Black people—not ALL people—exist within these conditions is consequence of state violence.”[34]

Influence

In 2014, the American Dialect Society chose #BlackLivesMatter as their word of the year.[35][36] Over eleven hundred black professors expressed support for BLM.[37] Several media organizations have referred to BLM as “a new civil rights movement”.[1][38][39] #BlackLivesMatter was voted as one of the twelve hashtags that changed the world in 2014.[40]

In 2015, Serena Williams expressed her support for Black Lives Matter, writing to BLM: “Keep it up. Don’t let those trolls stop you. We’ve been through so much for so many centuries, and we shall overcome this too.”[41]

On May 9, 2016 Delrish Moss was sworn in as the first permanent African-American police chief in Ferguson, where he acknowledges he faces such challenges as diversifying the police force, creating dramatic improvements in community relations, and addressing issues that catalyzed the Black Lives Matter movement.[46]

Notable protests and demonstrations

2014

In August 2014, during Labor Day weekend, Black Lives Matter organized a “Freedom Ride”, that brought more than 500 African-Americans from across the United States intoFerguson, Missouri, to support the work being done on the ground by local organizations.[47]

Black Lives Matter members and supporters rode in from New York City, Newark, Boston, Chicago, Columbus, Miami, Detroit, Houston, Oakland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Nashville, Portland, Tucson, Washington, D.C., and more, in a similar way to that of the Freedom Riders in the 1960s.[48] The movement has been generally involved in theFerguson unrest, following the death of Michael Brown.[49]

In November in Oakland, California, fourteen Black Lives Matter activists were arrested after they stopped a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) train for more than an hour onBlack Friday, one of the biggest shopping days of the year. The protest, which was led by Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza, was organized in response to the grand jury decision not to indict Darren Wilson for the death of Mike Brown. [50][51]

Also in December, in response to the decision by the grand jury not to indict Darren Wilson on any charges related to the death of Michael Brown, a protest march was held inBerkeley, California. Later, in 2015, protesters and journalists who participated in that rally filed a lawsuit alleging “unconstitutional police attacks” on attendees.[57]

2015

This section is outdated. Please update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(December 2015)

Black Lives Matter protest against St. Paul police brutality at Metro Green Line

In October, Black Lives Matters activists were arrested during a protest of a police chiefs conference in Chicago.[92] Activists in Los Angeles Black Lives Matter activists were among several organizations that disrupted a community meeting with Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti at a church in South L.A. [93] The protesters said that Garcetti had broken a promise to work with their organization to plan a meeting. The pastor of the church that hosted the meeting denied that Black Lives Matter organizers had been excluded. [94]

In November, BLM activists protested after Jamar Clark was shot by Minneapolis Police Department.[99] Later that month, after continuous protest at the Minneapolis 4th Precinct Police Station, a march was organized to honor Jamar Clark, from the 4th Precinct to downtown Minneapolis. After the march, masked men carrying firearms appeared and began calling the protesters racial slurs. After protesters asked the armed men to leave, the men opened fire, shooting five protesters.[100] All injuries required hospitalization, but were not life-threatening. The men fled the scene only to later be found and arrested. The men arrested were young, one white, one Hispanic, both believed to be white supremacists.[101]

In November 2015, students at Dartmouth College held a peaceful meeting and march after a Black Lives Matter art installation on the campus was vandalized. After the march, a smaller group of students entered the university library and conducted a protest there.[102]The Dartmouth Review, a conservative campus publication, reported that the protesters had shoved other students and used profanity. Campus police and college officials claimed they had not observed any incidents of shoving or other physical violence.[103]

Influence

In the first Democratic debate, the presidential candidates were asked whether black lives matter or all lives matter.[108] In reply, Bernie Sanders stated “black lives matter.”[108]Martin O’Malley said, “Black lives matter,” and that the “movement is making is a very, very legitimate and serious point, and that is that as a nation we have undervalued the lives of black lives, people of color.”[109]Jim Webb, on the other hand, replied: “as the president of the United States, every life in this country matters.”[108]Hillary Clinton was not directly asked the same question, but was instead asked: “What would you do for African Americans in this country that President Obama couldn’t?”[110]

In response to what she would do differently from President Obama for African-Americans, Hillary Clinton pushed for criminal justice reform, and said, “We need a new New Deal for communities of color.”[111] Clinton had already met with Black Lives Matter representatives in August 2015, and expressed skepticism in the movement’s practical application.[clarification needed][112] In June 2015, Clinton was reported to have said “All lives matter.”[113]

Republican candidates have been mostly critical of BLM. In August 2015, Ben Carson, the only African American vying for the presidency, called the movement “silly”.[114]Carson also said that BLM should care for all black lives, not just a few.[115] In the first Republican presidential debate, which took place in Cleveland, only one question referenced Black Lives Matter.[116] In response to the question, Scott Walker did not acknowledge Black Lives Matter and advocated for the proper training of law enforcement.[116]

Republican presidential candidate Scott Walker blamed the movement for rising anti-police sentiment,[117] while Marco Rubio was the first candidate to publicly sympathize with the movement’s point of view.[118]

Several conservative pundits have labeled the movement a “hate group”.[119] Candidate Chris Christie, the New Jersey Governor, criticized President Obama for supporting BLM, claiming the movement calls for the murder of police officers,[120] which was condemned by New Jersey chapters of the NAACP and ACLU.[121]

Protests

At the Netroots Nation Conference in July 2015, dozens of Black Lives Matter activists took over the stage at an event featuring Martin O’Malley and Bernie Sanders. Activists, including Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors, asked both candidates for specific policy proposals to address deaths in police custody.[124] The protesters chanted several slogans, including “if I die in police custody, burn everything down”. After conference organizers pleaded with the protesters for several minutes, O’Malley responded by pledging to release a wide-ranging plan for criminal justice reform. Protesters later booed O’Malley when he stated “Black lives matter. White lives matter. All lives matter.”[125]O’Malley later apologized for his remarks, saying that he didn’t mean to disrespect the black community.[125]

On August 8, 2015, a speech by Democratic presidential candidate and civil rights activist Bernie Sanders was disrupted by a group from the Seattle Chapter of Black Lives Matter including chapter co-founder Marissa Johnson[126] who walked onstage, seized the microphone from him and called his supporters racists and white supremacists.[127][128][129] Sanders issued a platform in response.[130]

Nikki Stephens, the operator of a Facebook page called “Black Lives Matter: Seattle” issued an apology to Sanders’ supporters, claiming these actions did not represent her understanding of BLM. She was then sent messages by members of the Seattle Chapter which she described as threatening, and was forced to change the name of her group to “Black in Seattle”. The founders of Black Lives Matter stated that they had not issued an apology.[131]

In August, activists chanting “Black Lives Matter” interrupted the Las Vegas rally of Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush.[132] As Bush exited early, some of his supporters started responding to the protesters by chanting “white lives matter” or “all lives matter”.[133]

In November, a BLM protester was physically assaulted at a Donald Trump rally in Birmingham, Alabama. In response, Trump said, “maybe he should have been roughed up because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing.”[135] Trump had previously threatened to fight any Black Lives Matter protesters if they attempted to speak at one of his events.[136]

In March 2016, Black Lives Matter helped organize the 2016 Donald Trump Chicago rally protest that forced Trump to cancel the event.[137][138] Four individuals were arrested and charged in the incident. Two were “charged with felony aggravated battery to a police officer and resisting arrest”, one was “charged with two misdemeanor counts of resisting and obstructing a peace officer”, and the fourth “was charged with one misdemeanor count of resisting and obstructing a peace officer”.[139] A CBS reporter was one of those arrested outside the rally. He was charged with resisting arrest.[140]

“All Lives Matter”

Some[who?] have responded to the Black Lives Matter movement by countering that the phrase “All Lives Matter” would be a more proper title. Tim Scott has defended the usage of the “All Lives Matter” term.[141]

On Real Time with Bill MaherBill Maher expressed support of the “Black Lives Matter” phrase, stating that “‘All Lives Matter’ implies that all lives are equally at risk, and they’re not”.[142] Founders have responded to criticism of the movement’s exclusivity, saying, “#BlackLivesMatter doesn’t mean your life isn’t important – it means that Black lives, which are seen without value within White supremacy, are important to your liberation.”[143]

In a video interview with Laura Flanders, Garza discussed how “changing Black Lives Matter to All Lives Matter is a demonstration of how we don’t actually understand structural racism in this country”. She went on to discuss how other lives are valued more than black lives, which she strongly feels is wrong, and that to take blackness out of this equation is inappropriate.[144]

President Barack Obama spoke to the debate between Black Lives Matter and All Lives Matter.[146] Obama said, “I think that the reason that the organizers used the phrase Black Lives Matter was not because they were suggesting that no one else’s lives matter … rather what they were suggesting was there is a specific problem that is happening in the African American community that’s not happening in other communities.” He also said “that is a legitimate issue that we’ve got to address.”[14]

On February 24, 2016, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, sent out a company-wide internal memo to employees formally rebuking employees who had crossed out handwritten “Black Lives Matter” phrases on the company walls and had written “All Lives Matter” in their place. Facebook allows employees to free-write thoughts and phrases on company walls. The memo was then leaked by several employees. As Zuckerberg had previously condemned this practice at previous company meetings, and other similar requests had been issued by other leaders at Facebook, Zuckerberg wrote in the memo that he would now consider this overwriting practice not only disrespectful, but “malicious as well”.[147]

According to Zuckerberg’s memo, “Black Lives Matter doesn’t mean other lives don’t – it’s simply asking that the black community also achieves the justice they deserve.” The memo noted that the act of crossing something out in itself, “means silencing speech, or that one person’s speech is more important than another’s”.[148][149][150]

Deroy Murdock questioned the number of black people killed by police that is reported by BLM. He wrote, “But the notion that America’s cops simply are gunning down innocent black people is one of today’s biggest and deadliest lies.”[153] The hashtag #BlueLivesMatter was created by supporters who stood up for police officers’ lives.[154] Some critics also accuse Black Lives Matter of “anti-white and anti-police radicalism”.[155]

Many individuals in law enforcement have been critical of BLM. Sheriff David A. Clarke, Jr of Milwaukee County has been critical of Black Lives Matter, stating that there is no police brutality problem in America and that “there is no racism in the hearts of police officers”.[156] John McWhorter said that the Black Lives Matter movement should take on black-on-black crime.[157]

Seattle SeahawksRichard Sherman said about the “Black Lives Matter” movement, “I dealt with a best friend getting killed, and it was [by] two 35-year-old black men. There was no police officer involved, there wasn’t anybody else involved, and I didn’t hear anybody shouting ‘black lives matter’ then.”[158]

Tactics

Some black civil rights leaders, such as Rev. Cecil “Chip” Murray, Najee Ali, Earl Ofari Hutchinson, have criticized the tactics of BLM.[160] Marchers using a BLM banner were recorded in a video chanting, “Pigs in a blanket, fry ’em like bacon” at the Minnesota State Fair. Law enforcement groups said that the chant promotes death to police. The protest organizer disputed that interpretation.[161]

A North Carolina police chief retired after calling BLM a terrorist group.[162] A police officer in Oregon was removed from street duty following a social media post in which he said he would have to “babysit these fools”, in reference to planned BLM event.[163]

Some commentators and law enforcement have said that BLM has made it hard for police to do their job, leading to a rise in crime rates.[153] Commentators have referred to this as the “Ferguson effect.”[153]FBI DirectorJames Comey, for example, suggested that the movement is partly leading to a national rise in crime rates because police officers have pulled back from doing their jobs.[164] However, there had been even larger crime spikes prior to the events in Ferguson.[165]

White groups

In response to BLM, Facebook pages purporting to represent “White Student Unions” with the slogan “White Lives Matter” have been linked to college campuses in the United States.[166] The pages often promise a “safe space” for white students and condemn alleged anti-white racism on campus.[167] However, many of the groups were not verified as legitimate student organizations registered with their respective universities.[166]

Media depictions

The TV drama Scandal depicted Black Lives Matter on their March 5, 2015, episode that showed an unarmed black teen shot by a police officer.[168]

The documentary short film Bars4Justice features brief appearances by various activists and recording artists affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement. The film is an official selection of the 24th AnnualPan African Film Festival.

Macklemore & Ryan Lewis both rap and sample protest chants in their single, “White Privilege II“, including the eponymous chant, “black lives matter,” as well as “it’s not about you!” and “no justice, no peace”.

Hillary Clinton Blames Whites, Cops for Deaths of Young Black Men

Hillary Clinton used a CNN interview on Friday to completely embrace the Democrats’ claim that white people and cops must change to help reduce the number of African-Americans killed in tense exchanges with cops.

by NEIL MUNRO

“I will call for white people, like myself, to put ourselves in the shoes of those African-Americanfamilies who fear every time their children go somewhere, who have to have ‘The Talk,’ about, you now, how to really protect themselves [from police], when they’re the ones who should be expecting protection from encounters with police,” Clinton told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.

“I’m going to be talking to white people, we’re the ones who have to start listening to the legitimate cries coming from our African-American fellow citizens,” she said.

“We’ve got to figure out what is happening when routine traffic stops, when routine arrests, escalate into killings … Clearly, there seems to be a terrible disconnect between many police departments and officers and the people they have sworn to protect,” she said.

Federal policing guidelines are needed because “we have 18,000 police departments… [some of which need more training to] go after systemic racism, which is a reality, and to go after systemic bias,” she said.

“We’ve got to start once again respecting and treating each other with the dignity that every person deserves,” she said.

White Americans need to do a better job of listening when African Americans talk about the seen and unseen barriers you face every day.

To win in November, Clinton need a high turnout of African-American voters.

Neither Blitzer nor Clinton suggested that African-American communities have a role in reducing police-encounter deaths, which usually occur in tense engagements between a few cops and a few suspects with extensive criminal histories.

In general, young African-American men are far more likely to commit crimes than young white men, young Asian men or young Latino men. A November 2011 report by the Justice Department showed that young African-American men are just 1 percent of the population, yet are responsible for a disproportionate percentage of murders in the nation.

Clinton suggested that people who disagree with her agenda are racists. “There is so much more to be done… we can’t be engaging in hateful rhetoric or incitement of violence, we need to be bringing people together … we need more love and kindness.”

Less than three hours after the demonstration began at 8pm, police declared the protest an ‘unlawful assembly’ and ordered people to leave after objects were thrown at officers, the Arizona Republic reported.

In Rochester, New York, the SWAT team arrived and police arrested 74 protesters who were blocking the streets. One organizer, Ashley Gantt, said they sat down because they did not want any movement to be misinterpreted as violence after the shootings in Dallas.

Other protests were calmer, with an estimated 5,000 people marching peacefully along a highway in Atlanta as they demanded justice for black men killed by police officers in recent days.

There was a heavy police presence at the Atlanta rally as protesters halted traffic, with officers on high alert following Thursday’s massacre in Dallas.

Gunman Micah Xavier Johnson, 25, shot 12 officers and two civilians on a rampage that killed five Dallas cops.

Friday evening’s protest came as police forces across the country braced for any fall-out from the horrific shooting in Texas.

Black Lives Matter protesters have been sprayed with tear gas in Phoenix after a march against police brutality spiraled out of control. Pictured, a white man holding a Donald Trump ‘Make America Great Again’ placard interrupting the protest on Friday night

A protester gets help after being knocked to the ground after being pepper sprayed by police as marchers numbering nearly 1,000 take to the streets to protest against the recent fatal shootings of black men by police

Demonstrators try to ease the burning with several jugs of milk, which is commonly used as an antidote against capsicum, the same chemical found in hot chili peppers. Experts advise using water or saline instead, before washing the area with non-oil based soap

A protester raises him arms in front of a police blockade as marchers take to the streets to demonstrate against the recent fatal shootings of black men by police

Police in riot gear move in to break up a group of marchers as hundreds take to the streets to protest against the fatal shootings

Police declared the protest an ‘unlawful assembly’ by 11pm and ordered people to leave after objects were thrown at officers, the Arizona Republic reported (pictured, two protesters in downtown Phoenix last night)

Peaceful protests erupted around the country to protest the recent deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, but tensions were high in Phoenix

Three people were arrested, according to Phoenix police. Crowds had thinned out considerably by 11pm as police repeatedly asked people to return home

People began gathering outside Phoenix City Hall for the march scheduled at 8pm on Friday. By 10pm, police had begun using pepper spray to control the crowds

Civil rights leader Reverend Jarrett Maupin led the march and tried to shut down the freeway at one point before diverting the crowds. Police had blocked off the ramps to Interstate 10 as a precaution (pictured, one man kneeling with his arms up before police in riot gear)

Police shot bean bags into the crowd after rocks were reportedly thrown at them. While bean bags are meant to deliver a blow without penetrating the body like a bullet would, they can cause internal bleeding or break bones

Police departments around the country have taken extra precautions following the shooting at a protest in Dallas. Gunman Micah Xavier Johnson shot dead five police officers and injured seven more (pictured, demonstrators at the rally in Phoenix)

In Rochester, New York, the SWAT team arrived and police arrested 74 protesters who were blocking the streets (pictured, one demonstrator in Phoenix holding the flag upside down, a signal for dire distress)

Thousands more people took part in smaller protests across America, with demonstrations in Arkansas, Colorado, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Utah and Washington, DC

Thousands more people took part in smaller protests across America, with demonstrations in Arkansas, Colorado, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Utah and Washington, DC.

Also, in Los Angeles, rappers Snoop Dogg and The Game led a peaceful march to the LAPD’s headquarters, where they met with the mayor and police chief and urged improved relations between authorities and minority communities. Protests were also planned in Oakland and San Francisco on Friday night.

In Atlanta, demonstrators flooded the streets and brought traffic to a standstill Friday after gathering at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights near Centennial Olympic Park.

Police break up a group outside a store as nearly 1,000 protesters march in the streets to protest against the recent fatal shootings of two black men by police

Police send out tear gas to break up marchers numbering nearly 1,000 as they take to the streets to protest

Thousands of protesters have blocked a highway in Atlanta as they march through the city to demonstrate against police brutality

‘Who do you call when the murderer wears a badge?’ An estimated 5,000 people halted traffic as they demanded justice for black men killed at the hands of police officers

There was a heavy police presence during the peaceful protest (pictured), with officers on high alert following Thursday’s massacre of cops in Dallas

Friday evening’s protest came as police forces across the country braced for any fall-out from the horrific shooting in Texas

People protesting police brutality in Dallas on Thursday evening were belting out the same chant when Johnson first opened fire.

Tonight’s protests have been peaceful and no arrests have been made.

The marches are in response to the recent shootings of black men Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, who were shot by white police officers in Louisiana and Minnesota respectively.

Protesters shut down Atlanta highway after Dallas rampage

‘Hands up don’t shoot’: Demonstrators march through downtown Atlanta to protest the shootings of two black men by police officers

The marches are in response to the recent shootings of black men Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, who were shot by white police officers in Louisiana and Minnesota respectively

Sterling (left) was killed following a confrontation outside a Baton Rouge convenience store early Tuesday morning. Castile (right), 32, was shot dead by a cop during a traffic stop in Minnesota

NYC Police Commissioner William Bratton says city is on high alert

Police chiefs in New York, Washington, D.C, Boston, Las Vegas, St. Louis, and Nassau County have ordered officers to partner up for assignments.

The NYPD’s chief of department James O’Neill said until further notice, officers are banned from responding to calls alone.

‘Effective immediately and until further notice, all uniform members of service are to be assigned in pairs,’ an internal memo from O’Neill says, according to WPIX reporter Myles Miller.

Demonstrators march through downtown Atlanta

O’Neill added: ‘There will be no solo assignments citywide.’

Washington’s police chief Cathy Lanier ordered officers and supervisors in the capital to also pair up while on duty.

‘Looking at the type of attack that happened in Dallas, a two-man car, a four-man car, a 10-man car, isn’t going to make much of a difference,’ Lanier said, according to the Washington Post.

‘But it makes the officers feel much safer.’

Meanwhile, Cincinnati police spokeswoman Tiffaney Hardy says police will use two-officer patrols throughout the weekend, ‘then we will re-evaluate.’

A police union official says some officers had expressed desire to be in two-officer cars for increased safety.

Boston Police Department tweeted: ‘In light of the tragedy in Dallas and in the best interests of officer safety, all #BPD patrols will be conducted by two-officer units.’

The Las Vegas Police Department said officers will be operating in pairs because of reports of planned protests in cities across the country.

‘Based on reports of protests in several major cities across the US, on-duty #LVMPD officers will be working in pairs until further notice,’ the department tweeted.

In St Louis, Missouri, police chief Sam Dotson said all officers will also be required to wear bulletproof vests.

In a statement, Dotson said late on Thursday night: ‘Due to events unfolding in Dallas, Texas, effective immediately, all on-duty officers will work in pairs until further notice.

‘No police officers, park rangers or mashals will be sent or handle any assignments without a partner.

‘In addition to this, all personnel leaving any of the stations for enforcement activities will be required to wear their ballistic vest.’

He added: ‘Although locally we are not experiencing any civil unrest, this decision is precautionary and is to maximize the safety of officers and our community.’

The Nassau County Police Department officials said that all necessary steps were being taken to ensure the safety of police officers and the public.

In a statement on Friday, the department said: ‘Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims of this heinous act of violence and their families.

‘The NCPD is taking all necessary steps to ensure the safety of the public and our police officers.

‘We will intensify patrols in areas of public gatherings and near critical infrastructure.

‘Social media outlets will be intensely monitored and we request the public’s assistance in any way possible to stop threats to public safety.’

Five Dallas police officers were fatally shot and seven others wounded during a protest over the deaths of black men killed by police this week in Louisiana and Minnesota – the deadliest day for U.S. law enforcement since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Police officers are on alert across the country in the wake of deadly sniper attacks in Dallas on Thursday that left five cops dead. Above, Dallas police chief David Brown (left) and Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings

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Police chiefs in New York, Washington, D.C, Boston, Las Vegas, St. Louis, and Nassau County have ordered officers to partner up for assignment

CIA sponsored Cloward–Piven strategy bankrolled by liberal dupes aims for race war and order out of chaos

Kurt Nimmo – JULY 10, 2016

Is it possible liberal billionaires would support a racist group that markets white guilt for political gain and embraces activists calling for the lynching of white people and cops?
In November, members of Black Lives Matter (BLM) met behind closed doors with Democracy Alliance, a coterie of wealthy liberals who have pledged to fund leftist organizations.
The donor club was founded by former Clinton Treasury official Rob Stein. Members include the billionaire “philanthropist” George Soros, Taco Bell silver spoon baby Rob McKay, uber liberal Norman Lear, “meathead” Rob Reiner, co-founder of Tides Network Drummond Pike, SEIU boss Anna Burger (members of the union like to beat up opponents), and former Rockefeller Family Fund president Anne Bartley.
“The DA, as the club is known in Democratic circles, is recommending its donors step up check writing to a handful of endorsed groups that have supported the Black Lives Matter movement. And the club and some of its members also are considering ways to funnel support directly to scrappier local groups that have utilized confrontational tactics to inject their grievances into the political debate,” Politico reported.

Investigative journalist James Simpson has exposed connections between BLM and a constellation of leftist and Marxist groups, a number of them established as fronts by the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO).
“BLM is one of many projects undertaken by the FRSO,” writes Simpson. He points out that FRSO and BLM receive funding through the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA). “FRSO/BLM organizations are generously supported by a universe of wealthy foundations. Some, like those employing BLM founders [Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi] receive money directly.”
Many FRSO connected leftist and Marxist groups are also funded by other wealthy individuals, foundations, and corporations, including Kellogg, Ben & Jerry’s, Soros Funds, Hewlett, Rockefeller, Heinz, and others.
The Ford Foundation tops the list of NDWA financial contributors. It has funded CIA cultural fronts since the 1950s.
“At times it seemed as if the Ford Foundation was simply an extension of Government in the area of international cultural propaganda. The Ford Foundation had a record of close involvement in covert actions in Europe, working closely with Marshall Plan and CIA officials on specific projects,” writes the author of The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters, Frances Stonor Saunders.
It may seem contradictory for the state and wealthy liberals—many undoubtedly brainwashed dupes—to support organizations and individuals calling for abolishing capitalism and advocating the most severe form of Marxist ideology.
As the late Gary Allen so eloquently pointed out (None Dare Call It Conspiracy), socialism is a perfect mechanism for controlling humanity.
“If one understands that socialism is not a share-the-wealth program, but is in reality a method to consolidate and control the wealth, then the seeming paradox of superrich men promoting socialism becomes no paradox at all. Instead it becomes the logical, even the perfect tool of power-seeking megalomaniacs. Communism, or more accurately, socialism, is not a movement of the downtrodden masses, but of the economic elite.”

Obama gives speech in Orlando

Obama on ‘Radical Islam’

Speech by President Barack Obama After Counter-ISIL Meeting

President Obama On Orlando Shooting

Top Ex-CIA Agent Has ‘Chilling Warning’ About Obama’s Plans for Islamic State!

CIA Director on Islamic State

CIA Director John Brennan on ISIS and Global Threats at CSIS

CIA Chief Warns Islamic State Isn’t Finished Yet

CIA’S Brennan: Islamic State’s Momentum Blunted in Syria, Iraq

Shariamerica: Islam, Obama, and the Establishment Clause

Full Event: Donald Trump Rally in Dallas, TX (6-16-16)

An ’embarrassing’ break: Dozens of State Department officials just revolted against Obama’s Syria policy

At least 51 “mid-to-high-level State Department officials” have signed a dissent channel cable breaking with President Barack Obama’s policy on Syria and calling for US airstrikes on the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

“Failure to stem Assad’s flagrant abuses will only bolster the ideological appeal of groups such as Daesh, even as they endure tactical setbacks on the battlefield,” the cable reads, according to The Journal.

Daesh is an alternate name for ISIS, aka the Islamic State or ISIL.

“We are aware of a dissent channel cable written by a group of State Department employees regarding the situation in Syria,” State Department spokesman John Kirby told The Wall Street Journal.

“We are reviewing the cable now, which came up very recently, and I am not going to comment on the contents,” he said.

The officials who signed the document “range from a Syria desk officer in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs to a former deputy to the American ambassador in Damascus,” and have all been involved in formulating or carrying out the administration’s Syria policy.

That policy has largely emphasized defeating the Islamic State over bolstering Syria’s anti-Assad rebel groups.

According to the American Foreign Service Association, the dissent channel is “a serious policy channel reserved only for consideration of responsible dissenting and alternative views on substantive foreign policy issues that cannot be communicated in a full and timely manner through regular operating channels and procedures.”

It is available to all “regular or re-employed annuitant employees” of the State Department and the US Agency for International Development.

The number of officials – at least 50 – who have signed the internal document calling for military action against Assad is unusual, a former State Department official who worked on Middle East policy told The Journal.

“It’s embarrassing for the administration to have so many rank-and-file members break on Syria,” they said.

Fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces sit in a lookout position in the western rural area of Manbij.Thomson Reuters

The cable calls for the Obama administration to place more emphasis on defeating Assad – whose brutality is seen by many experts as the driver of Syria’s jihadist problem – by arming and regaining the trust of Syria’s moderate opposition.

That, in turn, will “turn the tide of the conflict against the regime [to] increase the chances for peace by sending a clear signal to the regime and its backers that there will be no military solution to the conflict,” the cable reportedly says.

The CIA-backed factions of the Free Syrian Army – the majority of which are Arab and battling forces loyal to Assad – have at times clashed with Pentagon-trained fighters associated with the Syrian Democratic Forces, who are predominantly Kurdish and focused on defeating the Islamic State.

Their divergent military objectives and ethnicities have bred mistrust and fighting that is ultimately counterproductive to the cause of the revolution.

Several high-ranking government officials, moreover – including Robert S. Ford, a former ambassador to Syria, and Obama’s former defense secretary, Chuck Hagel – have left their positions over Obama’s failure to act decisively against Assad, whose brutality continues to fuel a bloody revolution that has left over 400,000 people dead and millions displaced.

“Many people working on Syria for the State Department have long urged a tougher policy with the Assad government as a means of facilitating arrival at a negotiated political deal to set up a new Syrian government,” Ford told The New York Times on Thursday.

Protesters carry Free Syrian Army flags and chant slogans during an antigovernment protest in the town of Marat Numan in Idlib Province, Syria, on March 4.REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi

“The moral rationale for taking steps to end the deaths and suffering in Syria, after five years of brutal war, is evident and unquestionable,” the cable said. ” The status quo in Syria will continue to present increasingly dire, if not disastrous, humanitarian, diplomatic and terrorism-related challenges.”

Assad crossed Obama’s now infamous “red line” for airstrikes in 2013, when he used chemical weapons to kill more than 1,000 people in the eastern Damascus suburb of Ghouta. Obama backed away from that red line when Assad agreed to a Russia-brokered deal to destroy his chemical-weapons stockpile.

Some experts say, however, that the entire stockpile has not been destroyed as promised.

“The US’ Syria policy has always been in the head of one man, and one man only: Barack Obama. No one else has ever really had a say in what happens in Syria,” Tony Badran, a Middle East expert and researcher at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Business Insiderin a previous interview.

“Obama has owned it since day one – and from day one, he never intended to remove Assad,” he said.

The cable addresses Russia’s bombing campaign in Syria as well, asserting that Moscow and Assad have not taken past ceasefires and “consequential negotiations” seriously.

Russia entered the war in late September 2015 on behalf of Assad under the guise of fighting ISIS. Russian warplanes have primarily targeted non-jihadist, anti-Assad rebel groups, however, many of which are backed by the US, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia.

Government warplanes bombarded the besieged Syrian town of Darayya with barrel bombs last weekend, shortly after food aid was delivered to the town for the first time in nearly four years.

Chart: Obama Admin. On Pace to Issue One Million Green Cards to Migrants from Majority-Muslim Countries

SWEN PFOERTNER/AFP/Getty Images

by CAROLINE MAY

The Obama Administration is on pace to issue more than a million green cards to migrants from majority-Muslim countries, according to an analysis of Department of Homeland Security data.

A chart released by the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest Friday details the surge in immigration to the U.S. from majority-Muslim countries since President Barack Obama took office in 2009.

Specifically, in the first six fiscal years of Obama’s presidency (FY2009 – FY2014), his administration issued 832,014 green cards to migrants majority-Muslim countries, the most of which were issued to migrants from Pakistan (102,000), Iraq (102,000), Bangladesh (90,000), Iran (85,000), Egypt (56,000), and Somalia (37,000).

The total 832,014 new permanent residents do not include migrants on temporary, nonimmigrant visas — which allow foreign nationals to come to the U.S. temporarily for work, study, tourism and the like. As the subcommittee notes, the number also does not include those migrants who overstayed the terms of their visas.

Regardless, as the subcommittee explained in its analysis, the U.S. is playing host to immigrants from majority Muslim countries at an increasing pace.

Between FY 2013 and FY 2014, the number of green cards issued to migrants from Muslim-majority countries increased dramatically – from 117,423 in FY 2013, to 148,810 in FY 2014, a nearly 27 percent increase. Throughout the Obama Administration’s tenure, the United States has issued green cards to an average of 138,669 migrants from Muslim-majority countries per year, meaning that it is nearly certain the United States will have issued green cards to at least 1.1 million migrants from Muslim-majority countries on the President’s watch. It has also been reported that migration from Muslim-majority countries represents the fastest growing class of migrants.

Green cards, or Lawful Permanent Residency, puts immigrants on the path to citizenship and allows for lifetime residency, federal benefits, and work authorization. Included in the totals are refugees, who are required to apply for a green card after one year of residency in the U.S. Unlike other types of immigrants, refugees are immediately eligible for welfare benefits including Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), food stamps, and Medicaid.

A report from the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) indicated that in FY 2013, 91.4 percent of Middle Eastern refugees (accepted to the U.S. between 2008-2013) received food stamps, 73.1 percent were on Medicaid or Refugee Medical Assistance and 68.3 percent were on cash welfare.

51% of U.S. Muslims want Sharia; 60% of young Muslims more loyal to Islam than to U.S.

OCTOBER 15, 2015 3:43 PM BY ROBERT SPENCER

Really, what did you expect? A considerable portion of U.S. domestic and foreign policy is based on the assumption that Islam in the U.S. will be different: that Muslims here believe differently from those elsewhere, and do not accept the doctrines of violence against and subjugation of unbelievers that have characterized Islam throughout its history. But on what is that assumption based? Nothing but wishful thinking. And future generations of non-Muslims will pay the price.

In berating GOP presidential hopeful Ben Carson for suggesting a loyalty test for Muslims seeking high office, CNN host Jake Tapper maintained that he doesn’t know a single observant Muslim-American who wants to Islamize America.

“I just don’t know any Muslim-Americans — and I know plenty — who feel that way, even if they are observant Muslims,” he scowled.

Tapper doesn’t get out much. If he did, chances are he’d run into some of the 51% of Muslims living in the U.S. who just this June told Polling Co. they preferred having “the choice of being governed according to Shariah,” or Islamic law. Or the 60% of Muslim-Americans under 30 who told Pew Research they’re more loyal to Islam than America.

Maybe they’re all heretics, so let’s see what the enlightened Muslims think.

If Tapper did a little independent research he’d quickly find that America’s most respected Islamic leaders and scholars also want theocracy, not democracy, and even advocate trading the Constitution for the Quran.

These aren’t fringe players. These are the top officials representing the Muslim establishment in America today.

Hopefully none of them ever runs for president, because here’s what he’d have to say about the U.S. system of government:

• Muzammil Siddiqi, chairman of both the Fiqh Council of North America, which dispenses Islamic rulings, and the North American Islamic Trust, which owns most of the mosques in the U.S.: “As Muslims, we should participate in the system to safeguard our interests and try to bring gradual change, (but) we must not forget that Allah’s rules have to be established in all lands, and all our efforts should lead to that direction.”

• Omar Ahmad, co-founder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the top Muslim lobby group in Washington: “Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Quran should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth.”

• CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper: “I wouldn’t want to create the impression that I wouldn’t like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future.”

• Imam Siraj Wahhaj, director of the Muslim Alliance in North America: “In time, this so-called democracy will crumble, and there will be nothing. And the only thing that will remain will be Islam.”

• Imam Zaid Shakir, co-founder of Zaytuna College in Berkeley, Calif.: “If we put a nationwide infrastructure in place and marshaled our resources, we’d take over this country in a very short time. . . . What a great victory it will be for Islam to have this country in the fold and ranks of the Muslims.”…

John Owen Brennan (born September 22, 1955)[1][2] is an American government official who is the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. He has served as chief counterterrorism advisor to U.S. President Barack Obama; his title was Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, and Assistant to the President.[1][3][4] His responsibilities included overseeing plans to protect the country from terrorism and respond to natural disasters, and he met with the President daily.[5][6]Previously, he advised President Obama on foreign policy and intelligence issues during the 2008 presidential campaign and transition.[7] Brennan withdrew his name from consideration for Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the first Obama administration over concerns about his support for transferring terror suspects to countries where they may be tortured while serving under President George W. Bush.[3][5] Instead, Brennan was appointed Deputy National Security Advisor, a position which did not require Senate confirmation.[3][5][8]

President Barack Obama nominated Brennan as his next director of the CIA on January 7, 2013.[11][12][13] The ACLU called for the Senate not to proceed with the appointment until it confirms that “all of his conduct was within the law” at the CIA and White House.[14] John Brennan was approved by the Senate Intelligence Committee on March 5, 2013 to succeedDavid Petraeus as the Director of the CIA by a vote of 12 to 3.[15]

Career highlights

Brennan began his CIA career as an analyst, presumably in the Washington D.C. area, and spent 25 years with the agency.[1][5][17] At one point in his career, he was a daily intelligence briefer for President Bill Clinton.[5] In 1996 he was CIA station chief in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia when the Khobar Towers bombing killed 19 U.S. servicemen.[5] In 1999 he was appointed chief of staff to George Tenet, then-Director of the CIA.[3][5] Brennan became deputy executive director of the CIA in March 2001.[3] He was director of the newly created Terrorist Threat Integration Center from 2003 to 2004, an office that sifted through and compiled information for President Bush’s daily top secret intelligence briefings and employed the services of analysts from a dozen U.S. agencies and entities.[18] One of the controversies in his career involves the distribution of intelligence to the Bush White House that helped lead to an “Orange Terror Alert“, over Christmas 2003. The intelligence, which purported to list terror targets, was highly controversial within the CIA and was later discredited. An Obama administration official does not dispute that Brennan distributed the intelligence during the Bush era but said Brennan passed it along because that was his job.[19] His last post within the Intelligence Community was as director of the National Counterterrorism Center in 2004 and 2005, which incorporated information on terrorist activities across U.S. agencies.[3][20]

Brennan then left government service for a few years, becoming Chairman of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA) and the CEO of The Analysis Corporation (TAC). He continued to lead TAC after its acquisition by Global Strategies Group in 2007 and its growth as the Global Intelligence Solutions division of Global’s North American technology business GTEC, before returning to government service with the Obama administration as Homeland Security Advisor on January 20, 2009.[10]

On January 7, 2013, Brennan was nominated by President Barack Obama to be director of the Central Intelligence Agency.[21]

Counterterrorism advisor to President Obama

In late 2008 Brennan was the reported choice for Director of the CIA in the incoming Obama administration. Brennan withdrew his name from consideration because of opposition to his CIA service under President George W. Bush and past public statements he had made in support of enhanced interrogation and the transfer of terrorism suspects to countries where they might be tortured (extraordinary rendition).[3][5][22] President Obama then appointed him to be his chief counterterrorism advisor, a position that did not require Senate confirmation.[3][5][8]

Brennan and President Barack Obama at a meeting of the Homeland Security Council, May 2009

In August 2009, Brennan criticized some Bush-administration anti-terror policies, saying that waterboarding had threatened national security by increasing the recruitment of terrorists and decreasing the willingness of other nations to cooperate with the U.S.[23] He also described the Obama administration’s focus as being on “extremists” and not “jihadists“. He said that using the second term, which means one who is struggling for a holy goal, gives “these murderers the religious legitimacy they desperately seek” and suggests the US is at war with the religion of Islam.[23]

In an early December 2009 interview with the Bergen Record Brennan remarked, “the U.S. intelligence and law enforcement communities have to bat 1.000 every day. The terrorists are trying to be successful just once”.[5] At a press conferences days after the failed Christmas Day bomb attack on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, Brennan said U.S. intelligence agencies did not miss any signs that could have prevented the attempt but later said he had let the President down by underestimating a small group of Yemeni terrorists and not connecting them to the attempted bomber.[1][24] Within two weeks after the incident, however, he produced a report highly critical of the performance of U.S. intelligence agencies, concluding that their focus on terrorist attempts aimed at U.S. soil was inadequate.[17] In February 2010, he claimed on Meet the Press that he was tired of Republican lawmakers using national security issues as political footballs, and making allegations where they did not know the facts.[25]

Drone program

In April 2012 Brennan was the first Obama administration official to publicly acknowledge CIA drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. In his speech he argued for the legality, morality, and effectiveness of the program.[26][27][28] The ACLU and other organizations disagreed. In 2011/2012 he also helped reorganize the process, under the aegis of the Disposition Matrix database, by which people outside of war zones were put on the list of drone targets. According to an Associated Press story, the reorganization helped “concentrate power” over the process inside the White House administration.[29][30][31]

In June 2011, Brennan claimed that US counter-terrorism operations had not resulted in “a single collateral death” in the past year because of the “precision of the capabilities that we’ve been able to develop.”[32][33] Nine months later, Brennan claimed he had said “we had no information” about any civilian, noncombatant deaths during the timeframe in question.[33][34] The Bureau of Investigative Journalism disagreed with Brennan, citing their own research[35] that initially led them to believe that 45 to 56 civilians, including six children, had been killed by ten US drone strikes during the year-long period in question.[33] Additional research led the Bureau to raise their estimate to 76 deaths, including eight children and two women.[33] According to the Bureau, Brennan’s claims “do not appear to bear scrutiny.”[33]The Atlantic has been harsher in its criticism, saying that “Brennan has been willing to lie about those drone strikes to hide ugly realities.”[36]

According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Brennan’s comments about collateral death are perhaps explained by a counting method that treats all military-aged males in a strike zone as combatants unless there is explicit information to prove them innocent.[33][37]

CIA Director (2013–present)

Nomination

Morris Davis, a former Chief Prosecutor for the Guantanamo Military Commissions compared Brennan to Canadian Omar Khadr, who was convicted of “committing murder in violation of the law of war”.[38] He suggested that Brennan’s role in targeting individuals for CIA missile strikes was no more authorized than the throwing of the grenade Khadr was accused of.

On February 27, 2013, the Senate Intelligence Committee postponed a vote, expected to be taken the next day on the confirmation of Brennan until the following week. On March 5, the Intelligence Committee approved the nomination 12–3. The Senate was set to vote on Brennan’s nomination on March 6, 2013. However, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul began a talking Senate filibuster of the vote, citing President Barack Obama and his administration’s use of combat drones, stating “No one politician should be allowed to judge the guilt, to charge an individual, to judge the guilt of an individual and to execute an individual. It goes against everything that we fundamentally believe in our country.”[39][40] Paul’s filibuster continued for 13 hours, after which Brennan was confirmed by a vote of 63–34.

Brennan was sworn into the office of CIA Director on March 8, 2013.[41]

Oath of office of the President of the United States

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”[1]

ARTICLE II, SECTION 3, United States Constitution

[The President] shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed….

Hillary Clinton Outlines Plan to Abolish the Second Amendment

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Trump: We need strong surveillance, we need intelligence

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CIA chief: IS working to send operatives to the West

CIA Director John Brennan will tell Congress on Thursday that Islamic State militants are training and attempting to deploy operatives for further attacks on the West and will rely more on guerrilla-style tactics to compensate for their territorial losses.

CIA Director John Brennan will tell Congress on Thursday that Islamic State militants are training and attempting to deploy operatives for further attacks on the West and will rely more on guerrilla-style tactics to compensate for their territorial losses.

In remarks prepared for the Senate Intelligence Committee, Brennan says IS has been working to build an apparatus to direct and inspire attacks against its foreign enemies, as in the recent attacks in Paris and Brussels — ones the CIA believes were directed by IS leaders.

“ISIL has a large cadre of Western fighters who could potentially serve as operatives for attacks in the West,” Brennan said, using another acronym for the group. He said IS probably is working to smuggle them into countries, perhaps among refugee flows or through legitimate means of travel.

Brennan also noted the group’s call for followers to conduct so-called lone-wolf attacks in their home countries. He called last week’s attack in Orlando a “heinous act of wanton violence” and an “assault on the values of openness and tolerance” that define the United States as a nation.

He said IS is gradually cultivating its various branches into an interconnected network. The branch in Libya is likely the most advanced and most dangerous, but IS is trying to increase its influence in Africa, he said. The IS branch in the Sinai has become the “most active and capable terrorist group in Egypt,” attacking the Egyptian military and government targets in addition to foreigners and tourists, such as the downing of a Russian passenger jet last October.

Other branches have struggled to gain traction, he says. “The Yemen branch, for instance, has been riven with factionalism. And the Afghanistan-Pakistan branch has struggled to maintain its cohesion, in part because of competition with the Taliban.”

He called IS a “formidable adversary,” but said the U.S.-led coalition has made progress combatting the group, which has had to surrender large swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria and has lost some of its leaders in airstrikes. IS has struggled to replenish its ranks of fighters, Brennan said, because fewer of them are traveling to Syria and others have defected.

“The group appears to be a long way from realizing the vision that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi laid out when he declared the caliphate two years ago in Mosul,” Iraq, Brennan said.

He said the group’s ability to raise money has also been curtailed, although the group still continues to generate at least tens of millions of dollars in revenue each month, mostly from taxation and from sales of crude oil.

“Unfortunately, despite all our progress against ISIL on the battlefield and in the financial realm, our efforts have not reduced the group’s terrorism capability and global reach,” he said.

“In fact, as the pressure mounts on ISIL, we judge that it will intensify its global terror campaign to maintain its dominance of the global terrorism agenda.”

Paul Ryan: Trump’s judge comments are ‘textbook…

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Pat Buchanan: Trump ‘Has A Perfect Reason’ to Believe Trump University Judge Does Not Like Him

By Pam Key

Thursday on “The Mike Gallagher Show,” while discussing on the controversy over Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s comments about the the Trump University case and U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel’s Mexican heritage, former Nixon and Reagan aide and conservative commentator Pat Buchanan said, “Donald has a perfect reason to believe he might be having this thing stuck to him right in the middle of a campaign,” explaining “it might well be because the judge is a Mexican-American that he really does not like Donald Trump.”

When asked if there is merit in those criticizing Trump, Buchanan said, “I really don’t. I mean, I can I understand why they would say that Donald Trump shouldn’t have suggested that it’s because he’s a Mexican-American that he’s biased against him, but I think that’s Trump’s point. Look what did Trump say? He said this judge is really sticking it to me. And he has got some arguments to support that, the dumping of all those documents to the Washington Post, etc.”

He continued, “Look, let me just say this. Donald has a perfect reason to believe he might be having this thing stuck to him right in the middle of a campaign, this guy dropping all these documents, etc. Secondly, and it might well be because the judge is a Mexican-American that he really does not like Donald Trump. There’s an awful lot of Mexican-Americans and, indeed, former presidents of Mexico who have said that they can’t stand the guy. But the basic point is, if Trump believes this, and it may be true, what is he supposed to do if he said what he believes to be true and now everybody wants him to apologize for a statement he believes to be true?”

He added, “The judge is a member of this San Diego La Raza group of lawyers out there. When they say that’s not the real La Raza, that’s not the other — yeah the head of the real la Raza is siting right the White House for heavens sake. An organization that identifies itself as ‘the race” it seems to me its not illegitimate to suggest they might have a bias towards folks like themselves.”

Story 1: Trump Rattles The American Okie Doke Obama Into Stuttering Empty Suit –The Great Pretender — The Truth Hurts — Get Out of Our Lives — Roll It Back To A Full Employment Growing Booming Economy with 67% Labor Participation Rate and Less Than 3% Unemployment Rate — Make America Great Again — Catch Me If You Can — Videos

Psychological projection is a theory in psychology in which humans defend themselves against their own unpleasant impulses by denying their existence while attributing them to others. For example, a person who is habitually rude may constantly accuse other people of being rude. It incorporates blame shifting.

Immigration moderation. Before any new green cards are issued to foreign workers abroad, there will be a pause where employers will have to hire from the domestic pool of unemployed immigrant and native workers. This will help reverse women’s plummeting workplace participation rate, grow wages, and allow record immigration levels to subside to more moderate historical averages.

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Frank Abagnale, who evolved from being a brilliant young mastermind of international deception and fraud into one of the world’s most respected authorities on forgery and embezzlement, tells his life story. His intercontinental saga prompted Steven Spielberg to turn Abagnale’s life into the movie Catch Me If You Can starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

Series Id: LNS13327709
Seasonally Adjusted
Series title: (seas) Total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of all civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers
Labor force status: Aggregated totals unemployed
Type of data: Percent or rate
Age: 16 years and over
Percent/rates: Unemployed and mrg attached and pt for econ reas as percent of labor force plus marg attached

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Year

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

Annual

1994

11.8

11.4

11.4

11.2

10.8

10.9

10.7

10.5

10.4

10.3

10.1

10.0

1995

10.2

9.9

9.9

10.0

10.0

10.1

10.1

10.0

10.1

9.9

10.0

10.0

1996

9.8

10.0

9.8

9.9

9.7

9.6

9.7

9.3

9.4

9.4

9.3

9.5

1997

9.4

9.4

9.1

9.2

8.8

8.8

8.6

8.6

8.7

8.4

8.3

8.4

1998

8.4

8.4

8.4

7.9

7.9

8.0

8.1

7.9

7.9

7.8

7.6

7.6

1999

7.7

7.7

7.6

7.6

7.4

7.5

7.5

7.3

7.4

7.2

7.1

7.1

2000

7.1

7.2

7.1

6.9

7.1

7.0

7.0

7.1

7.0

6.8

7.1

6.9

2001

7.3

7.4

7.3

7.4

7.5

7.9

7.8

8.1

8.7

9.3

9.4

9.6

2002

9.5

9.5

9.4

9.7

9.5

9.5

9.6

9.6

9.6

9.6

9.7

9.8

2003

10.0

10.2

10.0

10.2

10.1

10.3

10.3

10.1

10.4

10.2

10.0

9.8

2004

9.9

9.7

10.0

9.6

9.6

9.5

9.5

9.4

9.4

9.7

9.4

9.2

2005

9.3

9.3

9.1

8.9

8.9

9.0

8.8

8.9

9.0

8.7

8.7

8.6

2006

8.4

8.4

8.2

8.1

8.2

8.4

8.5

8.4

8.0

8.2

8.1

7.9

2007

8.4

8.2

8.0

8.2

8.2

8.3

8.4

8.4

8.4

8.4

8.4

8.8

2008

9.2

9.0

9.1

9.2

9.7

10.1

10.5

10.8

11.0

11.8

12.6

13.6

2009

14.2

15.2

15.8

15.9

16.5

16.5

16.4

16.7

16.7

17.1

17.1

17.1

2010

16.7

17.0

17.1

17.1

16.6

16.4

16.4

16.5

16.8

16.6

16.9

16.6

2011

16.2

16.0

15.9

16.1

15.8

16.1

15.9

16.1

16.4

15.8

15.5

15.2

2012

15.2

15.0

14.6

14.6

14.8

14.8

14.8

14.6

14.8

14.4

14.4

14.4

2013

14.5

14.3

13.8

14.0

13.8

14.2

13.8

13.6

13.7

13.7

13.1

13.1

2014

12.7

12.6

12.6

12.3

12.1

12.0

12.2

12.0

11.8

11.5

11.4

11.2

2015

11.3

11.0

10.9

10.8

10.7

10.5

10.4

10.3

10.0

9.8

9.9

9.9

2016

9.9

9.7

9.8

9.7

Obama in Elkhart: Voters should beware of politicians ‘preying’ on economic fears

President Barack Obama says people should beware of politicians who are “preying” on Americans’ anxieties about the economy in a bid to win headlines and votes.

Obama isn’t naming names. But he says some politicians are running on anti-trade, anti-immigrant policies in an effort to play to people’s fears.

Obama made the remarks during a visit to Elkhart, Indiana. He’s holding up the manufacturing community as a symbol of the nation’s climb from recession to recovery.

Obama says his administration’s “smart” decisions played a part in helping Elkhart come back. He says he wants to bust “myths” that Democratic policies are bad for the economy.

To Obama, lingering challenges aren’t enough to forestall a planned victory lap. Arguing that his controversial $840 billion stimulus package was ultimately vindicated, Obama will call on the next president to be willing to spend big to enable further economic growth.

The president is making his eighth visit to the state since taking office in January 2009. Here are details on the visits:

Feb. 2, 2009: Travels to Elkhart for his first event outside the Washington area since taking office 13 days earlier and speaks about his economic stimulus plan at Concord High School as Elkhart County’s unemployment rate was about 15 percent.

May 17, 2009: Delivers commencement address at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, an appearance that drew weeks of criticism from many Catholic bishops and abortion opponents. Then travels to Indianapolis for two Democratic Party fundraisers.

Psychological projection is a theory in psychology in which humans defend themselves against their own unpleasant impulses by denying their existence while attributing them to others.[1] For example, a person who is habitually rudemay constantly accuse other people of being rude. It incorporates blame shifting.

According to some research, the projection of one’s negative qualities onto others is a common process in everyday life.[2]

Historical precursors

A prominent precursor in the formulation of the projection principle was Giambattista Vico,[3][4] and an early formulation of it is found in ancient Greek writer Xenophanes, which observed that “the gods of Ethiopians were inevitably black with flat noses while those of the Thracians were blond with blue eyes.”[citation needed] In 1841, Ludwig Feuerbach was the first to employ this concept as the basis for a systematic critique of religion.[5][6][7]

Psychoanalytic developments

Projection (German: Projektion) was conceptualised by Freud in his letters to Wilhelm Fliess,[8] and further refined by Karl Abraham and Anna Freud. Freud considered that in projection thoughts, motivations, desires, and feelings that cannot be accepted as one’s own are dealt with by being placed in the outside world and attributed to someone else.[9] What the ego repudiates is split off and placed in another.[10]

Freud would later come to believe that projection did not take place arbitrarily, but rather seized on and exaggerated an element that already existed on a small scale in the other person.[11] (The related defence of projective identification differs from projection in that there the other person is expected to become identified with the impulse or desire projected outside,[12] so that the self maintains a connection with what is projected, in contrast to the total repudiation of projection proper.)[13]

Melanie Klein saw the projection of good parts of the self as leading potentially to over-idealisation of the object.[14] Equally, it may be one’s conscience that is projected, in an attempt to escape its control: a more benign version of this allows one to come to terms with outside authority.[15]

Carl Jung considered that the unacceptable parts of the personality represented by the Shadow archetype were particularly likely to give rise to projection, both small-scale and on a national/international basis.[19]Marie-Louise Von Franz extended her view of projection, stating that “wherever known reality stops, where we touch the unknown, there we project an archetypal image”.[20]

Psychological projection is one of the medical explanations of bewitchment used to explain the behavior of the afflicted children at Salem in 1692. The historian John Demos asserts that the symptoms of bewitchment experienced by the afflicted girls were due to the girls undergoing psychological projection of repressed aggression.[21]

Practical examples

Victim blaming: The victim of someone else’s accident or bad luck may be offered criticism, the theory being that the victim may be at fault for having attracted the other person’s hostility.[22]

Projection of marital guilt: Thoughts of infidelity to a partner may be unconsciously projected in self-defence on to the partner in question, so that the guiltattached to the thoughts can be repudiated or turned to blame instead, in a process linked to denial.[23]

Bullying: A bully may project his/her own feelings of vulnerability onto the target(s) of the bullying activity. Despite the fact that a bully’s typically denigrating activities are aimed at the bully’s targets, the true source of such negativity is ultimately almost always found in the bully’s own sense of personal insecurityand/or vulnerability.[24] Such aggressive projections of displaced negative emotions can occur anywhere from the micro-level of interpersonal relationships, all the way up through to the macro-level of international politics, or even international armed conflict.[19]

Projection of general guilt: Projection of a severe conscience[25] is another form of defence, one which may be linked to the making of false accusations, personal or political.[19]

Projection of hope: Also, in a more positive light, a patient may sometimes project his or her feelings of hope onto the therapist.[26]

Counter-projection

Jung wrote, “All projections provoke counter-projection when the object is unconscious of the quality projected upon it by the subject.”[27] Thus, what is unconscious in the recipient will be projected back onto the projector, precipitating a form of mutual acting out.[28]

In a rather different usage, Harry Stack Sullivan saw counter-projection in the therapeutic context as a way of warding off the compulsive re-enactment of apsychological trauma, by emphasising the difference between the current situation and the projected obsession with the perceived perpetrator of the original trauma.[29]

Projection may help a fragile ego reduce anxiety, but at the cost of a certain dissociation, as in dissociative identity disorder.[31] In extreme cases, an individual’s personality may end up becoming critically depleted.[32] In such cases, therapy may be required which would include the slow rebuilding of the personality through the “taking back” of such projections.[33]

Criticism

Some studies were critical of Freud’s theory. Research supports the existence of a false-consensus effect whereby humans have a broad tendency to believe that others are similar to themselves, and thus “project” their personal traits onto others. This applies to good traits as well as bad traits and is not a defense mechanism for denying the existence of the trait within the self.[34]

Instead, Newman, Duff, and Baumeister (1997) proposed a new model of defensive projection. In this view, people try to suppress thoughts of their undesirable traits, and these efforts make those trait categories highly accessible—so that they are then used all the more often when forming impressions of others. The projection is then only a by-product of the real defensive mechanism.[35]

Instead, Republicans selected national delegates through the caucus process, a move that put the election of national delegates in the hands of party insiders and activists — leaving roughly 90 percent of the more than 1 million Republican voters on the sidelines.

The decision sparked significant controversy at the time and removed Colorado from the Republican primary map in the early stages of the campaign. But Cruz supporters worked quietly behind the scenes to build an organization to get like-minded Republicans to the March 1 precinct caucuses and capitalized on the Trump campaign’s failure to adapt to the system.

Trump’s campaign didn’t put a visible paid staffer on the ground in Colorado until last week, when it hired Patrick Davis, a Colorado Springs political consultant, to organize national delegate candidates at the 7th Congressional District convention in Arvada. By then, Cruz had won the first six delegates.

Even then, the energy behind Trump’s campaign didn’t materialize in support. He managed to win only seven alternate delegates.

The Trump campaign’s list of preferred national delegates distributed at the state convention on Saturday was riddled with errors and misspellings that only further hurt its chances.

The problems with Trump’s ballots — and the candidate’s comments — raise questions about whether Colorado will figure prominently into a challenge at the national convention about the state’s delegates.

Ahead of the state convention, a Trump campaign strategist said it made the strategic decision not to compete in Colorado because the caucus system favored party insiders.

Trump skipped the state party convention, where Cruz gave a rousing speech that galvanized his supporters.

In an interview at the event, Cruz said Trump was “scared” to attend because he “doesn’t handle losing well.”

Powered at first by volunteer organizers, the Cruz campaign began working to win delegates months ago and amplified the efforts in January when it brought U.S. Rep. Ken Buck, R-Windsor, on board as state chairman. The campaign also teamed with controversial conservative organizations, such as the Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, Gun Owners of America and religious liberty groups, to rally support.

Former Colorado state Republican party chairman Ryan Call talked to Laura Ingraham today to explain the delegation-selection process works and how it “cuts out any semblance of democracy or the popular will.” Call said the statewide convention that chooses the delegates reinforces all the worst stereotypes of the party.

“The very time we should be opening up our doors and being more open and transparent, and welcoming people into our Party, we’ve essentially made the decision to close it off and make it more cumbersome and more difficult. And, to prevent the ability of people to have their voice heard in this process. You’re reinforcing all of the very worst stereotypes about the Party and I, frankly, am very concerned about the way voters are going to feel,” Call told Ingraham.

Transcript, via Laura Ingraham Show:

Ingraham: The August 25th announcement that they would no longer do the presidential preference poll at their caucus, my spidey-senses went up when that happened. Was I correct to, at the time, note that this was a sign that they were not going to be bound by the people of Colorado selecting Trump. If that was a risk, they wanted to cut that off at the pass in August. Am I correct in stating that?

Call: That’s exactly right. While the caucus votes we’ve held in previous elections in 2008 and 2012 were always straw polls, they didn’t bind or allocate the delegations. They at least were a snapshot into where voter sentiment is in the state of Colorado, and the decision by the state Republican Party to cancel that vote taken in connection with the caucus really did cut out any semblance of democracy or the popular will in connection with the delegate election event. It became an entire party insiders game with getting delegates to go to county assemblies in the state convention. While Colorado has over a million registered Republican voters, the only votes that really counted were that of the 3,900 delegates that gathered down in Colorado Springs.

Ingraham: How do you become a delegate in Colorado? Does it tend to be more people who are activists within the Party? Is there a Tea Party element? How does that play out?

Call: So, Colorado has a lot of different elements. Tea Party elements, strong second amendment and pro-life supporters, it’s a very diverse coalition. And, lots of factions are involved in the Party. But, the process to become a delegate, to be able to have your voice heard in the process, is admittedly cumbersome, convoluted, complicated, and not friendly to folks that are political novices or are new at this process. You would have had to show up at your local neighborhood caucuses back in March, March 1st, and sit through two or three hour meetings, get elected from among your neighbors at the local neighborhood precinct caucus to go attend a county assembly. Then, from the county assembly, you had to convince the few hundred or a thousand of delegates at the county assembly to move you on to attend the congressional district, or state convention process. Then, you had to show up at the state convention and, as has been widely reported, you had ten seconds to make your pitch to the 3,900 delegates at the state assembly of why they should elect you to go to Cleveland.

Ingraham: At a time where the Republicans are so fractured, and it really is for the most part an anti-Establishment mood within the Party, that’s why Rubio went down in flames, that’s why Jeb couldn’t get any traction, that’s why Kasich is still lower in delegate count than Rubio. These outsiders as they’re called are still managing to capture the imagination and the spirit of the people, but if at the end of all this people just have an overall sense that, if you’re a Republican voter and you vote it doesn’t matter that much, how much damage do you think that will do to the Republican brand or reputation going forward?

Call: That is a great observation, and it’s a concern I feel overwhelmingly as well. The very time we should be opening up our doors and being more open and transparent, and welcoming people into our Party, we’ve essentially made the decision to close it off and make it more cumbersome and more difficult. And, to prevent the ability of people to have their voice heard in this process. You’re reinforcing all of the very worst stereotypes about the Party and I, frankly, am very concerned about the way voters are going to feel. In a swing state like Colorado, for example, even if Ted Cruz or Donald Trump ultimately become the nominee for President, while we’ve been able to make our pitch to the 3,900 delegates at the state convention, there’s million registered Republicans that haven’t been talked to and there’s almost a million and a half unaffiliated voters, independent voters, that are key to deciding the contest in the battleground state and we haven’t done any work in a state like Colorado to build the campaign infrastructure to engage them or allow their voices to be heard. So, the message we’re sending to voters broadly the way this process is going is that your vote doesn’t matter and your voice doesn’t count.

Colorado will not vote for a Republican candidate for president at its 2016 caucus after party leaders approved a little-noticed shift that may diminish the state’s clout in the most open nomination contest in the modern era.

The GOP executive committee has voted to cancel the traditional presidential preference poll after the national party changed its rules to require a state’s delegates to support the candidate who wins the caucus vote.

The move makes Colorado the only state so far to forfeit a role in the early nomination process, according to political experts, but other caucus states are still considering how to adapt to the new rule.

“It takes Colorado completely off the map” in the primary season, said Ryan Call, a former state GOP chairman.

Republicans still will hold precinct caucus meetings in early 2016 to begin the process of selecting delegates for the national convention — but the 37 delegates are not pledged to any specific candidate.

The Democratic Party still will hold a presidential straw poll March 1 — a Super Tuesday vote in a key swing state that is attracting attention from top-tier candidates.

For Republicans, no declared winner means the caucus will lack much of its hype. The presidential campaigns still may try to win delegate slots for their supporters, but experts say the move makes it less likely that candidates will visit Colorado to court voters.

The Colorado system often favors anti-establishment candidates who draw a dedicated following among activists — as evidenced by Rick Santorum’s victory in 2012 caucus. So the party’s movemay hurt GOP contenders such as Donald Trump, Ben Carson and Rand Paul, who would have received a boost if they won the state.

State Republican Party Chairman Steve House said the party’s 24-member executive committee made the unanimous decision Friday — six members were absent — to skip the preference poll.

The move, he said, would give Colorado delegates the freedom to support any candidate eligible at the Cleveland convention in July. Republican National Committee officials confirmed that the change complies with party rules.

“If we do a binding presidential preference poll, we would then pledge our delegates … and the candidates we bind them to may not be in the race by the time we get to the convention,” House said in an interview Tuesday.

The caucus is likely to occur in February, but party officials will meet next month to finalize the date.

In 2008 and 2012, die-hard Republican voters gathered at caucus meetings to begin the delegate-selection process of selecting delegates to the national convention and voice support for presidential candidates in a straw poll.

The votes, however, didn’t require Colorado delegates to support any particular candidate at the national conventions. This allowed for delegates that supported a losing candidate to vote for the nominee and demonstrate party unity at the convention.

But the freedom also opened the door for political mischief, as Colorado saw in 2012 when Ron Paul supporters managed to win a significant portion of the delegate slots, even though Paul finished far behind other candidates in the Colorado caucuses.

The RNC tightened the rules in 2012 to eliminate nonbinding straw polls and help prevent similar stunts in the future, forcing Colorado Republicans to re-evaluate their process. An effort earlier this year to switch to a presidential primary system failed amid party infighting.

“It’s an odd scenario,” said Josh Putnam, a political science lecturer at the University of Georgia who runs a popular blog on the presidential nominating process. “It’s not to say the campaigns won’t be there. … But you won’t have a good reflection of support at the caucuses, much less Colorado Republicans as a whole.”

Other caucus states are grappling with the rule change in different ways as they finalize their plans before the deadline at the end of September, Putnam said, but he is not aware of any state that has abandoned the presidential caucus vote.

With the change, the only way Colorado Republican delegates would remain relevant is the remote chance that no candidate emerges as a clear winner in the primary contest. In this case, the state’s unbound delegates would receive significant attention and may hold the key to victory in a floor fight.

“If there’s the potential for a brokered convention in any way, the unaffiliated delegates become extremely important,” said Joy Hoffman, the Arapahoe County GOP chairwoman who attended the party meeting. “If there is someone who becomes a front-runner, … then nobody’s important. So I think the view became that if we were not bound, it’s not the worse thing that could happen.”

The National Border Patrol Council (NBPC), the organization that represents nearly 17,000 of the Border Patrol agents who risk their lives to secure U.S. borders, is challenging the Colorado GOP for not holding a state primary and instead slating delegates mostly favorable to Trump’s rival

In an exclusive statement to Breitbart News, the National Border Patrol Council wrote:

In our March 30th endorsement statement of Donald J. Trump, we, the National Border Patrol Council called upon the American people to stand with border agents in support of Mr. Trump and his pledge to end illegal immigration. We fully expected that the will of the American electorate, whatever they decided in this primary, would be upheld. It is now clear that voters are being disenfranchised in order to protect established interests.

By cancelling the election in Colorado, the Republican Party has found a brand new way to disenfranchise voters who want secure borders and safe communities. Once again, the will of the public – who have pleaded for immigration enforcement – is being overridden by special interests with agendas. We see the same thing happening across the country, where delegates won by Mr. Trump – through a popular recorded vote – have made secret arrangements to support other candidates, thwarting the will of the millions of voters they collectively are supposed to represent. This is insidious.

I am calling today on the Republican Party to promise free, fair and open elections in America. All candidates should join in this demand. Elections should mean that the people – not party insiders – choose the nominee. We will never secure our immigration system unless the raw will of the American people is imposed through the ballot box. Clearly, politicians and special interests will continue to betray America’s interests if they are left to their own devices.

Over the past weekend, the Colorado Republican Party held its state convention, where at least 30 of the 37 Colorado delegates selected to attend the Republican National Convention and cast a vote for the 2016 nominee favor Cruz.

Following Cruz’s sweep, the Colorado GOP sent out a tweet from its official Twitter account, reading, “We did it! #NeverTrump.”

The tweet was subsequently deleted, but the occurrence is fueling backlash from voters who believe the establishment is obstructing the will of the people.

Trump also weighed in on Twitter about the people of Colorado not having their vote count:
******

(Disclosure: Breitbart Texas sponsored the Green Line podcast for the NBPC in an effort to provide a platform for agents to inform the public about the realities on the border and what Border Patrol agents face. Director Brandon Darby received an award from the Laredo chapter of the NBPC for his work in helping to defend and bring a voice to Border Patrol agents. Breitbart News assisted in covering funeral costs for a slain Border Patrol agent previously. Darby and Breitbart senior management have directly stated and shown that helping to bring a voice to the expressed needs and interests of Border Patrol agents is a top priority–personally, individually and together through Breitbart News.)